


tides will bring me back to you

by eternalgoldfish



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Billy Hargrove Is Bad at Feelings, Billy Hargrove is a Ghost, Bisexual Billy Hargrove, Bisexual Steve Harrington, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Dark Comedy, Dreamsharing, Fix-It, Fix-It of Sorts, Ghosts, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nightmares, Ouija, Paranormal, Post-Season/Series 03, Romance, Steve Harrington Is a Mess, Steve Harrington Needs Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-07
Updated: 2019-10-05
Packaged: 2020-06-24 07:33:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 32,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19719088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eternalgoldfish/pseuds/eternalgoldfish
Summary: It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right. Billy sat in the dark, eyes closed, listening to the clock on the mantle tick and the refrigerator hum. Steve Harrington was nothing to him, a regret, maybe, a bitter taste in his mouth, but not a friend. If Billy was resentful, he thought maybe he’d see the logic in the afterlife pinning them together, but he didn’t feel a sense of longing or torment, didn’t feel like he was being pulled between life and death, or between realms. He just was, painless, lead in his belly as he sat on the floor by Steve’s feet.If he was meant to be trying to get somewhere, he didn’t know where. Was he supposed to pass on? He curled his knees up to his chest and watched Steve sleep, Steve’s lips shiny with spit and hair hanging over his forehead.Or, how to find love as a ghost.





	1. eyes like a car crash (i can't turn away)

**Author's Note:**

> This is season 3 canon compliant, guys! People have died and people have moved, but I promise it's more of a dark comedy than an angst-fest.  
> The song is "Deathbeds" by Bring Me The Horizon.

Dying really took the shit out of a guy, or so Billy thought as he lay on his back in the dark, dizzy like the spins after a long night guzzling stale wine. At least, he assumed he was dead. He remembered snippets, apples bobbing to the surface in his brain. A young girl, Eleven, Jane, scrunchie coming undone in her short hair, blood dripping from her nose to her chin. A monstrous roar. Sharp teeth. Smashing Mike Wheeler’s head into a metal pipe like he’d always wanted, had wanted since that night in the Byers’ house, but something about it was wrong, wrong, wrong, and not just in the way he knew it when his head calmed and his moral compass pointed north. It was wrong because they were his hands, as rough as always, but not his mind.

He remembered standing with a hand outstretched, mind on his mother, her voice, her golden hair. As a baby, he’d been bright blonde like her. He still had her eyes.

The monster had still pulsed inside him, the shadow pulling gooseflesh up his neck, but for one moment, one sick crunch, his hands were his own. His mind was clear. He’d drank chlorine, anti-freeze, bleach. Preparation to be one with the beast, if it so chose. His body was as rotten on the inside as it was on the outside. If he lived longer than the hivemind, it wouldn’t be long.

There were choices in life that Billy had weighed and changed his mind on. Things he hadn’t wanted to accept and things he would never change. Standing in front of that young girl, the one he was sworn to kill, hands outstretched as he fought his own creator, was the easiest decision he had ever made.

It hurt. He remembered that it hurt. The creature pumped him with too much of its own venom, stabbed at his heart as a last measure. The buzz in his head had chanted betrayal and promises. _You have made a terrible mistake._

But he hadn’t. He knew he hadn’t.

Maybe Max had hovered over him. Maybe she’d heard his last apology. Maybe it didn’t matter.

There had always been poison in his blood. Of course it would burn him into something new.

The dark dizziness was consuming, held him tight for what felt like forever. Not that he had a sense of time, just an awareness that he was aware, a stuckness in some kind of calm purgatory. There was no sound but his beating heart and slow breaths, strange only because in death his body still knew what to do. Dying still left him in his old ways, the human condition dragging him forward, forward, forward.

There was no time. No rush of wind, no trees.

Then a voice.

“I can totally swim,” the voice said. “I’ve had a pool in my backyard since I was like, five. Lifeguard courses can’t take that long to pass, right? And I’ve got my first aid. I was the safety officer at Scoops. You could ask my boss. I already have a lot of experience dealing with kids, and well. I know you’re looking for two new lifeguards. I’m sorry, by the way, for your loss. I went to school with them too, they were good people.”

“You’re looking for a new receptionist, right? I’m good with numbers. I counted the tills when I worked at Scoops, and I’ve got great customer service skills. I also know a lot about cars, so I think I’d fit in at this dealership really well.”

“Are you hiring? I’ve always thought it would be cool to work at an arcade. I’m a really big fan of Pacman, and like. That one the kids were super excited about like a year ago, with the dragon? Yeah, that one.”

“I know dad, I’m shit, and you’re still mad, and I get it, _I get it_ ¸ I know I fucked up with my grades, but I passed, right? Please can I just have that job you offered in the fall.”

Then there were colours. No shapes, just the flickering of orange sunlight behind closed eyelids, the floating specks of black that never truly left his vision.

“Dustin, come on, man. I get that Suzie dumped you, but did you really think it was going to work out? I’m sorry, but. You said yourself that her parents would never let you be together. I know it’s shit and you don’t want to hear it, but you weren’t going to see each other again, you know? She was just gonna be a voice on the other end of your walkie talkie. C’mon, let me get you a drink. Yeah, I know you’re a fucking toddler, you nerd, but you’re what, fifteen? Almost? My mom was slipping me wine at twelve, and you deserve it.”

Then light winds, warmth, chilly mornings and dew as summer must have melded into fall. More sounds started to bleed in, not just that warm, familiar voice. He could hear rustling branches and the buzz of an engine, splashing water and children laughing. There was the beeping of a game console and the ringing of a phone. Someone new asking, “Are your parents back from Prague? It must be lonely in that big house.”

One dark morning, with the moon still in the sky, Billy felt carpeting under his toes, the spinning of the universe dulled down as he felt grounded, solid. There was still a lightness in his chest that he couldn’t shake, but he could open his eyes.

Steve Harrington lay in bed, mouth pressed into his pillow. How many girls had seen him drool like that? Did he always snore?

Of all the places Billy could have ended up, sitting on the edge of Steve’s bed as he watched clouds shift behind his open curtains wasn’t one he’d expected. Not that he’d really expected anything. Frankly, he kind of wanted to throw up.

The numbers on the alarm clock ticked up until eleven thirty, then screamed as Steve rolled to smack off the alarm. Billy held his breath, wondered if he was caught, but Steve just blinked at the numbers in front of him, before saying, “Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

He threw himself out of bed, nearly tripped on the laundry on the floor, and slammed into the bathroom.

The next time Billy blinked, he wasn’t in the bedroom. He was sitting in Steve’s car, a little disoriented, a little more nauseous. Steve jabbed at the radio buttons as he drove, clearly unhappy with talk shows and rock and roll. Which. The next time Steve turned the knob, he skipped over AC/DC, and it was Billy’s favourite fucking song, and that was not alright.

Billy flipped the knob back. Steve frowned. He turned it and landed on Madonna. Of course he had horrible taste. Of course he was a fucking loser. Billy flipped the knob back.

“What? Come on,” Steve whined, turning it again.

“You’re fucking kidding me,” Billy said, but Steve didn’t look over at him, didn’t frown.

It hadn’t really occurred to Billy that he was invisible, but it also hadn’t occurred to him that he _wasn’t_ , so. It was oddly natural, made him sick but unsurprised. He flipped back to _Back in Black._

“Stupid fucking radio. Stupid fucking car,” Steve said, changing it again. “I don’t mean it, baby. You’re a good car.”

What was that supposed to do? Placate the vehicle? Holy shit. Billy turned the knob, kept his fingers tight around it as he watched Steve rub his eyes.

“Alright, _alright_ , I get it. Fuck.”

“My car radio is broken.”

The girl behind the counter at the movie rental place raised her eyebrows into her fringe. She wore an orange sundress with safety pins clipped on the straps, three in a row on each side. Not for function, obviously, but fashion. She held up a VHS and waved it in Steve’s face. Her black nail polish was chipped. She’d be hot, if she wasn’t wearing so much eyeliner. “Is that why you’re two hours late? Your car radio?”

Steve grimaced. “I forgot to reset my alarm.”

“Great job, dingus. Keith is going to lose his fucking mind when he sees the punch cards.”

Never mind, maybe she was hot. Billy’d have given her a go at a party, at the very least.

“Yeah, I know, Jesus Christ, can you move so I can clock in?” Steve pushed around her to get to the back. His hair was a bit flat on one side, but it had held its shape surprisingly well for having been slept on. Not that Steve looked like he’d gotten a lot of sleep. He didn’t need eyeliner to mirror the chick behind the counter.

“Aren’t you supposed to be at school?” Steve asked, when he came back out. He pushed around her again to grab a stack of tapes.

“It’s Saturday, dingus.”

“Fuck, it is?”

“Are you doing alright?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Steve promised, rubbed his mouth. “Are you?”

She shrugged. “No nightmares last night. I’ve been trying to watch more military movies, I think it’s helping me desensitize myself.”

“I don’t think that’s how it works.”

“Are you a psychologist now? What the fuck are you doing, working here?”

“Oh, shut up.”

Yeah, Billy definitely would have banged her.

When Steve popped out of the store for lunch, Billy was suddenly seated at a table in Hawkins Diner, stomach rolling. He thought he maybe had a headache, if that was even possible.

Steve picked at curly fries and a milkshake as he paged through a newspaper, eyes pausing and mouth muttering as he digested the comics. It wasn’t interesting. It wasn’t entertaining.

Billy stuck his finger into the shake, just to see, and it was cold, moved around his skin like it should. When he pulled his finger out, thick chocolate clung to it, but Steve didn’t see it, didn’t even look up.

It was cold, but didn’t taste like anything. Billy was hoping it would at least taste like ash.

That night, Steve ghosted around his house. He ate cold pizza for dinner and lay on the couch watching _The Outsiders_ , fell asleep with the TV and the lights on.

Billy turned them all off.

It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right. Billy sat in the dark, eyes closed, listening to the clock on the mantle tick and the refrigerator hum. Steve Harrington was nothing to him, a regret, maybe, a bitter taste in his mouth, but not a friend. If Billy was resentful, he thought maybe he’d see the logic in the afterlife pinning them together, but he didn’t feel a sense of longing or torment, didn’t feel like he was being pulled between life and death, or between realms. He just was, painless, lead in his belly as he sat on the floor by Steve’s feet.

He could touch things, which meant he wasn’t a ghost, but he wasn’t angry, or rather, any angrier than usual, so he wasn’t a poltergeist. He’d seen enough horror movies to know what ghosts were supposed to do, but he’d never bought into the idea of them being real, and didn’t see how humans could have guessed the behaviour of spirits beyond the grave.

If he was meant to be trying to get somewhere, he didn’t know where. Was he supposed to pass on? He curled his knees up to his chest and watched Steve sleep, Steve’s lips shiny with spit and hair hanging over his forehead.

He was stupid. He was gorgeous.

Billy had hit him with a plate.

It was ten thirty in the morning on Monday, October 7th, according to the calendar pinned up behind the register. The store was dead aside from Steve, who had spent most of the last hour wandering around, putting tapes back on shelves and adjusting their displays.

The worst part of being dead, Billy had already realized, was the tedious boredom of it all. Sure, Steve had given up on the car radio, so Billy had free reign, and there was always some movie playing on loop in the corner of the store, but Billy had already seen _Footloose_ a thousand fucking times, and if he had to hear the song once more, he was pretty sure he’d start breaking things.

“What? Come on,” Steve said, walking over to the TV and poking at the power button.

There was a second where the screen stayed black, before the TV buzzed and jerked back to life. People on the scream laughed and danced, clapping their hands.

Billy turned it off again.

Steve put a hand on his hips and rubbed his eyes. “Keith is going to throw a fit.”

How Keith had become a manager for the video store was completely beyond Billy. Nine months ago he’d been sneering at children in an arcade, making minimum wage. Who the fuck thought he was fit to maintain an entire franchise branch?

Steve jabbed the power button again and waited until the TV jerked back to life. For a few minutes, he just squinted at the images, waiting for something, anything. When Steve seemed satisfied, Billy yanked the power cable from the wall.

“You’re fucking kidding me.”

“Hey, no running!” Steve called, three thirty in the afternoon bringing in droves of school children who’d escaped the clutches of education.

“You don’t tell me what to do,” a little girl in yellow overalls and pigtails said. She looked kind of familiar, but nearly everyone in town did. The shadow in Billy had seen everything and everyone, pumped them behind his eyelids when he slept.

“Erica,” Steve said, like patience was his least favourite virtue. “I swear to god, if you get me fired—”

“You’ll what? Never buy me ice cream again?”

“When I told you I’d give you free ice cream for life—”

“You hadn’t expected it to come out of your pockets? I know, nerd, but a deal is a deal—”

“I know, but can you quit it? You’re going to knock shit over, and I literally spent all morning—”

It wasn’t kind, but Billy had never been known to be kind, had he? With a casual stride, he placed one hand on a shelf and walked alongside a teenager headed to the romance section, dropping every single VHS to the floor along the way.

The guy, to his credit, just looked over the stands at Steve with his eyebrows raised and said, “I didn’t do it.”

“Out,” Steve said, wheeling Erica towards the door. “Out, out. Both of you!”

At night, Billy lay beside Steve and watched the overhead fan spin. He didn’t think he could sleep. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to, but more that he figured he couldn’t, a kind of instinct letting him know his limitations. Maybe he had slept too much over the last few months, mind kept in limbo, or maybe sleeplessness was just a facet of being dead, even though he felt tired, so tired.

Steve rolled and bumped into his side, but he didn’t seem to notice how he’d stalled. He just murmured a little and smacked his lips, his forehead lolling into Billy’s chin.

It wasn’t cuddling. Billy would have never fucking cuddled Steve Harrington. But as he let his eyes slip shut, he felt that familiar dizzy-drunk feeling, followed it until he was weightless, dropped in inky black.

“Billy?” Steve asked, and when Billy opened his eyes, he wasn’t in Steve’s bedroom. He was at the bottom of the quarry, fire crackling in the evening, warming his shins. Sun bathed Steve’s faced orange as he waved mosquitos away from his face.

“Hey, Pretty Boy,” Billy said, speech slurred. The beer bottle between his fingers was cold. When he drank, he could taste the hops.

“What are you doing here?”

“What?”

“I thought you were dead.”

Billy shrugged, didn’t know why he felt compelled to say, “No more dead than you.”

Steve shuddered, whole chest heaving as he scrabbled to his feet. Said, “No. No, no, no.”

Something guttural roared in the distance, chitters and cries shaking through the trees above them on the cliff face. “We’re trapped. Fuck. Fuck,” Steve said.

“What?” Billy asked. But the world was spinning again, yanking on his gut, soot soaking him as the flying embers popped faster, catching the straggling grass around them on fire.

A monster with shiny, wrinkled skin broke towards them, four-leafed maw and rows of teeth shrieking. Steve searched around for something, aimlessly turning in circles as the creature charged. “Billy—” Steve said as lightning cracked. “Billy—”

With a gasp, Billy was lying on his back in Steve’s bedroom, alarm clock flashing and a car driving by in the night.

Steve screamed.

“So. You had a dream about Billy Hargrove, and that’s weird how?”

Steve pressed his thumbs into his eyes. “You’re not listening. It wasn’t weird because it was about Billy—that’s not exactly new? It was just—the way he was. Like, non-threatening. Friendly?”

Robin leaned on her hand, elbow resting on the counter as she watched Steve sort. After a few days, Billy had figured out which of Steve’s coworkers were which. “Why wouldn’t he be friendly? I thought you guys were like, friends?”

“What? Why would you think that?”

Billy caught the VHS Steve fumbled, lightly knocked it back to where Steve had meant to place it on the shelf.

“You were both popular? You hung out a lot?”

“Remember when Dustin was giving me shit for always losing fights? How he said I’d lost two? He only mentioned Jonathan, but the other one was Billy. He literally almost killed me.”

“Why didn’t he just say that?” Robin leaned forward more. “That’s way more important than Jonny-boy giving you a shiner and a busted nose. If I was giving you shit for all your lost fights, you know that’s the one I’d go for first.”

“Oh, I know, you’re so generous.”

She smiled and pulled a white board out from under the counter, started scribbling under the heading _Reasons Steve Sucks_.

“What is that? What are you writing? God, why do you always have to do that.”

“It’s just to keep you humble. I have to make sure you have reasonable expectations, before your ego is as big as your hair again.”

“Some people like self-confidence, you know.”

“Yeah? How’s that working out for you?” She waved a hand around. “I promised Keith you’d be bringing in girls in droves. You’re not holding up your end of the bargain.”

Steve nearly dropped another VHS off the shelf as he tried to place it, because he couldn’t fucking look at what he was doing, apparently. Billy adjusted little boxes and wondered if he should turn off the TV again. Today they had on _E.T._ , and Billy was fucking over _E.T._

“You told him I would do what?”

“You know, use your charms to help him get laid. How did you think I got you the job? He hates you.”

“Yeah, I’m reminded of that every fucking day now, thanks.”

Robin put the cap back on her marker. “ _As I was saying_ , why was this dream about Billy so jarring? Maybe you just, like, are processing something. You guys hung out a lot, played sports together, were in a bunch of the same classes. It’s not surprising that he’d still be rocking around in there.”

“It wasn’t really a dream? I mean, yeah, it was, but not like, a good dream. We weren’t like, shooting hoops and shit. It was probably the worst nightmare I’ve had in months, and he was just—there.”

The door jingled and a gaggle of pre-teen boys came in, shoving each other to the horror section like they were even old enough to rent anything from there. Robin popped up on her toes enough to follow their heads over the stacks. “Maybe it’s grief? Maybe you’re just, like, processing it late. Maybe you were so shocked after everything that happened that you went to the funeral, carried on and are only feeling it now.”

It sounded like a nice idea, to Billy, made something warm settle in his stomach. He was getting used to his body half-working, picking and choosing which processes it wanted, what it could maintain. He didn’t know what it meant that Steve had dreamt of him too. He was still digesting that he could dream.

“I didn’t grieve at his funeral,” Steve said.

Billy knocked off all the VHS tapes on the shelf.

“Oh, what the fuck—Stop running!” Steve shouted to the kids two stacks over, who all ignored him in favour of fighting over _Poltergeist_. After bending to grab the boxes, he continued, “I went to the funeral, yeah, but it was for Max, not for him.”

“Whatever,” Robin said. “Your subconscious is puking something up, just go with it. It’s probably nothing. You just saw his name somewhere and now it’s on your mind.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

“Not maybe, dingus, that’s how this shit works. Grief is weird.”

“It’s not grief,” Steve insisted.

“Whatever,” Robin said.

The kids came up to the counter, each of them scrabbling around for pocket change as the tallest one put their stack of three tapes on the counter. “These, please, for two-day rentals?”

“You got ID?” Robin asked, twisting the films around to check their ratings.

“No, uh. I left it at home?”

“No ID, no R rated movie, company policy.”

“Please?” The kid said, pointed at Steve. “He lets us do it.”

Steve groaned and covered his face. “You’re busting my balls, kid.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow! Look at me, rolling out new stuff.  
> Thank you everyone for reading! I'm super excited about the new season and amped to see everyone else is as well.  
> If you want to talk Harringrove, or life, or like, cactus rearing? Feel free to hit me up @eternalgolfish on tumblr.  
> Huge thanks goes out to uncaringerinn for helping me out with this, and a big thanks to you as well for reading.  
> As always, comments are vastly appreciated! I love hearing your thoughts.  
> Have a great week, everyone!


	2. body like a whiplash (salt my wounds)

The sky was pitch-black, stars popping in and out from behind clouds, a heavy rain settling over Hawkins that threatened to be the first snowfall. Billy squinted at the bathroom mirror and prodded at the bags under his eyes. It didn’t feel like he needed rest, exactly, but more like his being was too much, the levity in his chest contrasted by the rocks in his limbs, like he had slept so long they’d all grown numb.

In the bedroom, Steve slumbered heavy, soft snores and huffs punctuated by the occasional rumbling of a car.

Billy didn’t know if it meant anything, that he could see himself in the mirror. He’d expected there to be nothing, just the towel rods behind him and the blue striped shower curtains. It was fucking creepy, being half-there, never sure of his own footing, although he _felt_ like he had feet. There was none of that floating, passing through walls bullshit going on.

His clothes were clean, if not a little wrinkled. There was no black blood, no icky sweat bleeding through his shirt collar and sticking the fabric to his back. He wore a simple white t-shirt and his favourite jeans, St. Christopher rocking against his chest, like he had never been adopted by the beast, had never prepared himself to be consumed.

When he entered the bedroom, Steve wiggled onto his belly, murmured something under his breath.

Billy ran a hand over his mouth. He needed air, and wasn’t that the joke of the fucking century.

He walked through the darkened house, one hand on the wall, listening to the beat of his own footsteps. Two of the Harrington’s stairs had creaky boards. The front door had a sticky lock that needed to be jimmied before it would pop open.

Under the moon, Hawkins was always surreal. LA had been bright at night, street lights and neon signs and police sirens washing out the galaxty. Even after a year, it was unsettling that the only light Billy could see was the street lamp at the end of the driveway, a large tree blocking most of its glow from hitting the hood of Steve’s BMW.

If only ghosts could smoke. Not that Billy _needed_ one, but it would have been nice. Maybe he could go to the store, see if he could pinch a pack. Maybe he could go see Max.

The idea of seeing his family made is chest tight, his mouth dry, but he wanted to know, _needed_ to know. Did Max cry at his funeral? Had she made sure he’d been buried with his grandfather’s ring, the one his mother had given him when he was eight? Had his mother come to his funeral?

Had anyone told her he’d died?

“Fuck,” he muttered, rubbed at his cheeks.

When he tried to step off the porch, his feet wouldn’t move. “What?”

With all his might, he strained forwards, angled his body over the step, but his feet stayed put. A car went by, casting light across his shins for just one second, just long enough for his breath to catch in his throat, his chest to ache.

“What?” he asked again. He tugged and tugged and tugged until his ankles would have been dislocated, his knees rigid and locked; tugged until a sob broke through his grit teeth.

“What the fuck? Why?” He shouted. A light flicked on in the window up above, the sudden brightness making him stagger back a step. He could move! But when he tried to step off the porch again, his feet stalled.

He choked, all snot, tears leaking down his cheeks as he turned on his heel and reached for the flower pot by the wall. It shattered in the driveway with a satisfying _smash_ , dirt and soil spilling out, revealing the center clod of dirt that was held together by dead roots. It wasn’t enough. Wouldn’t be enough.

He slammed the front door open and reached for a vase, was about to grab and hurl that too when heavy footsteps came hammering down the stairs. Steve’s hair was sticking up on one side, a pillow crease stretching from his ear to his open mouth.

“Holy fuck,” Steve said, pulling the half-open door out of the way and flipping on the porch light. He raised a hand to shield his eyes as he squinted out into the night. “What the fuck?” he said again, voice hardly a whisper.

Billy wiped snot on the back of his arm, breathed in deep as the wind howled.

With bare feet, Steve walked to the pot and crouched to pick up a chunk of terracotta. He turned the chunk around in his hand and looked out into the night. His voice cracked, said, “Fuck.”

Before he got back in bed, he triple checked the lock on the front door, pushed against it with all his weight to make sure it was shut tight. Every light between the front door and his bedroom was left on.

This time, Billy didn’t turn them off.

“Someone broke your flower pot? Big deal.”

“No, you don’t get it,” Steve said, slapping a sticker on the back of a cassette case. “It wasn’t just the pot. The door was open. What if there’s, like, someone hiding in my house now?”

“Someone hiding in your house?” Keith asked, like Steve was maybe the most stupid, uninspiring wad of chewed gum Keith had ever found cemented to the side of a Pac-man machine.

“Yeah, you know? Like, sometimes in the movies, there’s like, a killer in the house, just like, laying in wait for the right moment.”

“And which movie is that, again?”

“Oh, shut up,” Steve said. The next cassette case squeaked under the force of his thumb.

Keith pushed his bangs back from his splotchy cheeks, grimaced as he said, “You do remember that I’m your boss, right? I can fire you for talking to me like that?”

“Oh, come on,” Steve said. “We took swimming lessons together when we were five. Don’t give me that.”

The store had been empty since open, ten turning into eleven turning into twelve, because it was Wednesday and no one in their fucking right mind was looking to rent _Gremlins_ at that time of day. Billy sat on the back counter with his knees to his chest, leaning against a poster for _Sixteen Candles_. The VCR had mysteriously broken in the first half hour of the day, leaving the shop in blissful silence for once. Or, nearly silence.

Keith had the VCR cracked open on the counter, like maybe he knew how to fix it, and was jabbing his screwdriver into its guts. “I’m just saying, it was probably some stupid kid who broke the pot, and your door being shit. They probably scrammed when the wind knocked the door open.”

“I don’t know,” Steve said. “I just heard this like, scream? But when I looked out the window I didn’t see anything. Maybe it was the wind. But it just felt like something else, you know?”

“What, like, something supernatural? You telling me King Steve is afraid of ghosts?”

“Oh, fuck off, man,” Steve said, but Billy could see his throat working, remembered the monsters from Steve’s dreams, the darkness in Hawkins, the squelch of human meat. “I just think it’s weird. What if I get murdered?”

“You’re not going to get murdered.”

“How do you know?”

“If someone was going to murder you—which they aren’t doing—it would have been last night, when you didn’t immediately call the cops, dumbass.”

“Should I have done that?”

“If you thought you were going to get murdered, yeah. Jesus, how did you survive to be nineteen?”

“Resourcefulness? Charm?”

“More like dumb luck,” Billy muttered.

Keith snapped the back flap for the VCR back on. “Sure, if that’s what you want to call it.”

For lunch, Steve bought powdered donuts and a hotdog, ate them on the bench outside Melvald’s General Store. All the signs that warned of closure were gone, the shelves stacked to bursting with household goods and groceries, little fridge magnets of bananas and plums, over-priced push brooms.

Billy couldn’t move from his spot on the bench, didn’t recognize the woman working in the store. He hoped he hadn’t killed Joyce Byers. He didn’t think he had.

Robin sat on the back counter with her pencil between her teeth, eyes glued to _The Catcher in the Rye,_ as she ignored the middle-aged women in the romance aisle picking up every single tape, humming and putting them back. The woman had probably been in the store almost half an hour, just reading, tilting her head, frowning, and sighing. Billy could relate.

When Steve and Billy had come back from lunch, Keith had managed to get the VCR up and running again. For a few minutes, Billy had wished that Keith was as obtuse as Steve. Things were so much easier that day he just unplugged the machine. By the time Robin had come in to start her shift at three thirty, Billy had already suffered through _Mr.Mom_ twice, which was two too many times.

If Steve cared about the repetition, he didn’t do anything. He just waited for the film to finish, wandered over each time, rewound the cassette, and hit play.

“Did I tell you someone broke my flower pot?” Steve asked, refilling the rack of candy by the cash register.

“No?” Robin said, not looking up from her book. She licked her thumb and turned the page. “What flower pot?”

“The one on the front step. You know, the one with all those dead plants in it my mom won’t let me throw out, because she’s mad the cold killed them.”

“They died because you forgot to water them, dingus.”

“How was I supposed to know how often to water them? They weren’t my plants. It’s not my fault.”

“Right,” Robin said. “The flower pot, someone broke it?”

“Yeah, it was really weird. It was the middle of the night and I heard this shout, then something smashed outside, and when I went downstairs the pot was broken and my door was wide open.”

That made Robin put her book down. “The door was open?”

“Yeah, but nothing was stolen, and I couldn’t find anyone? Keith thinks it was just the shitty lock stopping the door from closing right, and the wind catching it. It was pretty windy last night.”

The woman in the aisle picked up another tape, traced her finger over the words on the back, sighed, and put it back on the shelf.

“And what do you think it was?”

“I don’t know,” Steve said. “It was just fucking weird, you know?”

The next movie the woman picked up was the last straw. Billy strode over to the racks and scanned the part she hadn’t gotten to yet, before slapping _Grease_ onto the floor. He thought the movie was shit, but Carol had gone on and on and on about it, like she thought John Travolta might get her pregnant just by looking in her direction, and Christ, if one woman was obsessed with that shit, they all had to be, right?

At the clatter, Robin looked up, Steve turning around as well to watch the lady blush and gather up the tape. “Oh, um. I’ll take this one?” she said. Billy rolled his eyes.

Robin hopped down from the counter to ring her through, reminded her it needed to be back in three days.

Once the woman had hurried out of the store, Steve turned to Robin and said, “She was hot, right?”

“What? She was like, forty.”

“Yeah, but like, a hot forty.”

Robin made a face. “Your broken flower pot?”

“Right. Right, Should I be doing something?”

“I don’t know what you could be doing, other than maybe closing your door better.”

Steve ran a hand through his hair. “I guess? I always make sure, though. I don’t want just anyone getting in, you know?”

Billy walked down the horror aisle, paused at _The Shining_. It struck a little close to home somehow, had him dragging his fingers over the glossy case _. Mr Mom_ was nearly done rewinding. Billy bit his lip. He shouldn’t.

He did it anyway.

“The strange and unusual does follow you. Maybe you’re cursed.”

“If I’m cursed, then this whole fucking town is cursed.”

The bell chimed as a group of kids made their way into the store, a tired looking father trailing behind the troop reminding them, “Only one movie!”

“This is disgusting,” The man said, jabbing a finger towards the TV as Steve paled. “This is a family store. Does that look like a family movie to you?”

“No, sir,” Steve said. “I don’t know how it got on, someone must have switched the tapes—”

“I don’t care how it got there. It’s irresponsible. My youngest is seven.”

“I’m sorry, sir, if you want, I can make your rental today on the house—maybe throw some skittles and popcorn to go in with it?”

“Fine,” the man said, snatching up the VHS and the nearest bag of popcorn. “But we are never coming here again.”

The radio in the car always played metal now. Steve never bothered to try and change it, just sighed when it switched on its own. His whole body softened when he drove, like maybe the road rushing under his feet calmed something inside him, nervous energy quelled by a rumbling engine. In the evening, Steve drove from the video store to the Henderson’s, dropped off a tape, before driving back through town. He seemed to always take the long way, when it was available. Billy didn’t mind.

In the soft glow of the street lights, Billy could watch the shadows pass over Steve’s face, glimpses of birthmarks and scars and baggy eyes. Steve would mumble about how he hated Heart, but he’d tap his fingers in time on the steering wheel, would pause a little too long at a stoplight so his car would lurch forward with the beat.

Sitting in the front of the BMW, Billy wondered what it would have been like to trace his fingers over the leather seats with Steve watching him out of the corner of his eye. Wondered what it would have been like to smoke out the passenger window while Steve complained that his father would smell it.

He thought about how Steve would have looked in the Camaro, smiling at Billy with a beer bottle held to his lips, the engine running as they sat inside an empty parking lot, parked car keeping them warm in the winter chill. Maybe Billy would have put a hand on his knee to feel the bones, find out what he was made of.

When Billy blinked, he was in the bedroom. Steve had climbed into bed some time ago, according to the clock, and Billy didn’t like the time he kept losing, didn’t like the way his stomach always lurched when he came to. There was nothing in him to throw up, but he felt like he needed to. If he did, it would just be ichor and bile, spit-trails of rotten blood.

He lay on the bed next to Steve, willed his head to stop pounding, and listened to the night.

The next time he opened his eyes, he was by the pool behind the house, water glowing bright blue in the humid evening. Mosquitos buzzed around his ears as he tapped the ash off his cigarette, and god, he’d fucking needed one, needed the cold beer in his hand as well.

Steve lay on his side in the recliner next to him. He had sunglasses perched on his nose, even if it was night. “What are you doing here?” He asked Billy.

Billy shrugged. “I don’t know?” he waved his cigarette. “Wanted a smoke, I guess?”

Steve stood up and grabbed his beer from the patio rocks. After a long sip, he wiped his mouth on his wrist and squinted at Billy over the lenses of his glasses. “But why are you _here_?”

Everything seemed hazy but solid, tasted right, smelled right, but second-hand. It was stupid, felt too honest, but Billy said, “Maybe I just miss you, Pretty Boy.”

“Miss me—” Steve laughed, dry. “That’s horseshit.”

Billy sat sideways and spread his knees wider, meant to rest his elbows on them, but then Steve was up in his space, towering above as he tangled his fingers in Billy’s curls, used them to crane his head back to look up at him. “How many times you try to kill me, huh?” he asked.

Billy licked his lips, cleared his throat. “Not enough, apparently.”

“Jesus Christ, Hargrove.”

“Yeah.”

“You died.”

“Yeah.”

Steve seemed to consider something a second, let out a slow breath, before kneeling on the stones, putting them face-to-face. The blue of the pool washed him eerie and pale, shadows ghosting purple lips. “I watched you die.”

“You did. You all did.”

“No one told me the monster was you. No one told me anything. I was stuck underground, in this Russian military base. I got out just in time for your buddy to come crashing through the roof.”

Billy thought he was going to be sick, was sick of feeling like he was going to be sick. He dropped his cigarette on the concrete, let it fall to ash. “I didn’t want to do it. I didn’t mean it.”

“I guess it doesn’t matter.” Steve said. “You’re dead. You’re not really here.”

“Then what am I?” Billy asked. His eyebrows creased, mouth slightly open, winded as Steve set his hands on his knees.

Steve dug his thumbs into tender bits, just enough for Billy to feel their sting, and pulled Billy’s legs open wider. He kissed him soft, just once, mouth parted, eyes shut.

When Billy blinked, the fan overhead spun lazy. Steve rolled over on the bed next to him and snored in his ear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I straight up just changed the number of chapters I'm planning from 3 to 6.  
> Sorry not sorry.  
> But also kind of sorry because I'm a disaster.  
> Thank you so much for reading!   
> Lots of love to all, but especially uncaringerinn for literally listening to me whine every day.  
> If you wanna hit me up, you can catch me @eternalgoldfish on tumblr. I love friends.  
> And as always, comments are super loved and appreciated! Your feedback means a lot to this sappy heart.


	3. don't try to fight the storm (you'll tumble overboard)

It was petty, honestly, but Billy needed something to do in the early hours, and it was worth it for how Steve looked scrambling around on his knees, hair fucked, cheeks red.

“What the fuck?” Steve whined, dumping his whole bin of cassettes on the floor. David Bowie and Bon Jovi bounced across the carpet, but Cindi Lauper was mysteriously missing, INXS was nowhere to be found. Steve shuffled the tapes around, plastic clattering, useless. “Does the world have something against Madonna this week?”

Billy sat in the desk chair and rolled his eyes, swivelled a little with the toes of his boots. Being dead was fucking boring. Being dead was the fucking _worst_.

Steve’s head snapped towards his desk and Billy abruptly stopped moving, breath held as Steve’s eyebrows furrowed. He looked between the closed window and the desk chair, then did it once more like maybe he had missed something the first time. He ran a hand over his face. “Get it together, Harrington. It’s just a tape. So what if Nancy bought it for you? Who fucking cares. Not _you_. Come on.”

And wow, Billy didn’t know what that was about, wasn’t sure he wanted to, but felt it snag something in his chest, something that reminded him of purpled lips by an alien pool, clammy fingers holding him still.

“Who the fuck even likes Madonna anyway?” Steve asked, before snatching a cassette off the floor.

Steve liked Madonna, or so Billy learned as he held his eyes shut and pressed his forehead to the cool window in Steve’s bathroom. Steam and _Shot Through The Heart_ filled the air as Steve sang in the shower, his own horrible rendition of _Material Girl_ overtaking the boombox on the counter. God, Billy didn’t die for this.

He kept his eyes closed and his body still, recognized that it was fucking weird for him to be in the bathroom while Steve showered, but also couldn’t bring himself to move. There was something familiar about the sound of water hitting tile that had Billy stuck there, wondering why Steve used Susan’s shampoo.

The song ended and the water shut off. The curtain hooks rattled against the rod as Steve stepped out. A gust of cold air filled the room as he opened the door and clicked the boombox off. Billy waited five seconds, twenty seconds, thirty seconds, before he turned to escape the room, sure that Steve had left. But when he opened his eyes and turned, Steve was standing at the sink, a towel around his waist and his hands over his eyes.

Steve’s shoulders shook as he breathed deep, murmuring something under his breath, palms pressing against his face in a way that looked like it hurt. Billy should’ve walked out, knew he should’ve, but his feet stalled with his chest inches from Steve’s back, eyes glued to the rivets of water bleeding down his neck. “Are you okay?” He asked, soft.

Steve’s head snapped up, body suddenly rod-straight as he looked in the mirror.

Everything in the bathroom was still covered with thick moisture from the shower, mirror impossible to see through with the fog, but behind Steve’s shoulders in the mist was an undeniable shape, bulky with blonde hair, hovering.

Billy moved fast, so when Steve whipped around, mouth open, there was nothing there.

“I’m telling you, dingus, you’re going to get fired if you don’t start getting here on time. I can’t cover your ass forever.”

“You’re not covering my ass. I wasn’t late!” Steve said. “Keith literally miss-read the schedule he fucking made. I wasn’t scheduled to start until noon. _Noon_. And then when I got here at noon, it was all, _where were you_ and _Becky had to come in an hour early because of you_ and _I got woken up early to come in and cover your ass_. He was literally supposed to be here to open! It was literally his shift.”

“You can’t say that though, dingus,” Robin said. She leaned on the counter, never seemed to be doing any actual work, as far as Billy could tell. “You say, sorry, Keith, I’ll be on time next time, and bat those pretty brown eyes at him.”

“Easy for you to say,” Steve said. He wobbled a little on the ladder he was climbing, busy adjusting new posters on the wall. “You just have to lean forward far enough for him to see your tits—”

“ _Steven_ ,” a woman in the aisle next to him said.

Steve winced, shrugged, “Sorry, Mrs. Appleton?”

“You need to have some respect,” Mrs. Appleton said. She took her tape up to the cash and handed Robin the right bills. “Don’t worry, young lady, I’m going to have a chat with his mother when she gets back from vacation. You’d think by this age he’d have better manners.”

“Don’t worry,” Robin smiled, sweet, polite, as she bagged the tape and a package of Milk Duds. “I don’t let him get away with anything.”

“Good girl.”

Billy held the ladder still as Steve tipped his head back and groaned.

Once Mrs. Appleton had bustled out of the store, Robin was moving around the counter. “It’s not just the tits, alright? You have to appeal to his ego.”

“So you know he looks at your tits?”

Robin snorted and handed him his next poster. “Of course I know he looks at my tits. Why do you think I started wearing lower-cut dresses? It’s _depressing_ how easy he is to manipulate. It’s practically boring.”

“You don’t feel like that’s, like. I don’t know. Misogynistic or whatever?” Steve asked, leaning farther than he should to pin the first corner. He tripped over the word a little, like he knew which letters belonged but not what order they went in.

“Oh, it is. Men are pigs. But if it’s harmless and gets me what I want—”

“Then I’m a pig?”

“My favourite pig,” she promised, pat his shin.

Steve huffed a laugh said, “Noted.”

Robin handed him one more poster before making her way back to the counter. “Steve?” She asked, holding up a tape. “What are these?”

“What?” He looked over his shoulder.

Billy adjusted a tape in the romance rack, thought he’d done a pretty good job reorganizing.

“These—” she said. “ _Partners_? _Liquid Sky_? _The Hunger_? _Lianna_?”

“I’m going to guess those are the names of movies, because you’re holding movies?”

“Steve—” She snapped, quickly lowered her voice. “That’s not fucking funny. Come over here.”

Steve ran a hand through his hair before hopping down from the stepladder. “What, some weirdo borrowed a bunch of movies and returned them without saying anything? It happens.”

“They’re all gay,” She said, quickly.

“What?”

“They’re—” she pushed _Lianna_ in his face, “— _gay_.”

“Oh,” He said, pushing the box away from his face and lowering his voice. “Oh, they’re—I didn’t even know we had that many—”

“ _Steve_. That’s not the point.”

When the idea had popped into Billy’s head, he was pretty shaky on what the point was himself, but he was more than positive it had nothing to do with whatever Goody Two Scoops was thinking.

“So you’re saying,” Steve said, leaning over the counter enough to read the sales log she was paging through. “That. We have gay movies?”

Yowza, was the look she gave him dark. “I’m _saying_ ,” She said, slow, flipping the book around so he could see. “No one took these out. Like, six people in all of Hawkins probably want to see them.”

“Wow, you’re counting six? All I got is you, Keith, Jonathan—”

“Shut up, we’re not the only people in town that watch movies—”

“Yeah, but you’re the only ones I know into all the artsy shit—”

“One of these is literally a cringy cop drama—”

Jesus Christ. Billy felt like his head was ringing, brain soup sloshing ear to ear as his headache built. Without looking, he shoved the nearest tape off the shelf.

Steve jumped at the _thump_ , the sound making him turn around just long enough for Robin to get out, “I haven’t told anyone else. Just you, Clara, and Mimi. So whoever this is _knows_.”

Which. Billy didn’t know what to make of that.

Slowly, Steve walked over to the shelf, picked up the tape, and walked it over to the counter. He wiggled the box between both hands, pursed his lips. “Maybe I did it?” he offered.

“You did it?”

“Yeah, maybe.”

“You wanted me to feel threatened? This is a sick fucking joke Steve, even from you.”

“What?” Steve set the tape down. “No—shit, no, I didn’t mean like that. Maybe I just, like, I don’t know, subconsciously picked those up when I was doing my rounds. The stickers on them all look pretty ratty, maybe I just grabbed them to sticker them?”

“You think this is a coincidence?”

“Yeah, I mean, why not? Or hey, maybe it was Keith. How many of those movies are about lesbians? I _know_ he’s probably a lesbian porn guy—”

Robin grit her teeth. “I can’t believe you just fucking said that to me.”

“Hey, look, that’s not what I—”

Robin reached for her white board, started scribbling.

“Robin—hey, Robin—Stop that, look, I didn’t mean it like, like that’s what I think about, alright? Because like, okay, we _both_ know that can be hot as shit, but I’m not, like, objectifying you.”

“Is that right?” She asked.

From his place next to Steve, Billy could just make out the first line of text under _Reasons Steve Sucks_.

Steve ran a hand through his hair, said, “I’m not, I’m really not, I swear. I just. It would make sense, right? More sense than some random asshole leaving you threatening messages with romance movies.”

“One of these is a horror movie—”

“With David Bowie in it!”

“What does that even mean?”

“I’m just guessing that’s the gay part—”

“He’s bisexual?”

“What does _that_ even mean?”

“Why would that make it a romance movie?”

“I don’t know, alright, Jesus Christ, will you let me talk? I’m saying, maybe I fucking did it, okay? Just like, being stupid, like I always am. Saw some tapes, thought they needed cleaning up, didn’t really read them. Beep bop boop, put them on the counter, walked off. Maybe they just spoke to me. I don’t fucking know.”

Robin put her white board down, writing to the counter. She crossed her arms and said, “You going to explain how they spoke to you, dingus?”

The store was empty, just shelves of videos and a TV playing _The Karate Kid_. Some punk had left a candy wrapper crumpled up by the cardboard cut-out of Phoebe Cates.

Still, Steve looked around, like maybe there would be someone to catch him lick his lips. “I had another one of those weird dreams,” he said.

“You’re going to have to be more specific, Steven.”

For a second, Steve grimaced, closed his eyes. “I had another dream about Billy Hargrove.”

Robin nodded and waved her hand, eyebrows up. When Steve said nothing else, she grabbed her whiteboard again. “Congratulations. I too, have dreams.”

“Look, Robin, that’s not—it wasn’t a normal dream, alright? Or a nightmare. I don’t know what it was. I just.” Steve looked at the ceiling, voice hardly cracking over a whisper. “I just kind of kissed him, I guess.”

Iron filled Billy’s stomach, had him feel like he’d been swallowing nails. If Steve had dreamed it, and he had dreamed it—

Robin’s eyebrows were still in her hairline, but they were far less angry. “Have you gone to a doctor? That doesn’t seem natural.”

“Shut the fuck up.”

“Oh no, dingus, you’ve just given me grade A material. Pretend I’m your therapist. How does this make you feel?”

“Like I have the worst friend in the entire world.”

“ _Steve_.”

“I don’t know, alright? I don’t really think I feel anything different? I just kind of. Kissed him. Just wanted to. I don’t know, it was fucked up. I was just tired, and he was handsome, and—”

“You can’t be tired in your dreams, dummy, you’re literally sleeping.”

“ _Robin_.”

“What? Look, maybe it’s just. Remember what I said about grief? That it’s weird?”

“I’m not grieving him.”

“No, you just spend all your time thinking about making out with dead boys. You know, you’re a lot worse at this straight shit than you initially made me believe.”

“I am straight.”

“Sure—”

“Robin. I’m serious. That’s not what this is—I don’t know what this is.”

“Steve Harrington, ladies and gentlemen. The man, the mystery.” She turned her whiteboard around.

“Oh, fuck you.”

_Reasons Steve Sucks:_

_\- Billy Hargrove_

_\- Man pig_

_\- Billy Hargrove_

Night seemed to come too fast and all at once, afternoon sun becoming twilight in a single blink, ceiling fan swirling above Steve’s bed making Billy dizzy. Steve sat on the floor surrounded by worn comics, beer bottle hardly balanced next to his knee on the carpet. He licked pizza sauce from the corner of his mouth before flipping his page and taking another bite.

It was the smell of the pizza, more than anything, that made Billy’s stomach roll. Or maybe he was just growing used to his soul lurching around, wanted to find other reasons for his bellyaches.

“Likely story,” Steve muttered to himself, wiped his cheek with the back of his hand.

“Specific,” Billy said. He lay on his back, close enough to Steve for stray hairs to reach his socked feet. “You gonna open up to the class, Stevie? Tell them what you really think?”

But there was no answer, just the sound of a page turning as Steve cleared his throat.

“I could say so many things to you,” Billy went on. “You wouldn’t even fucking know it, you know? Could tell you how many girls told me they stopped crushing on you when I came to town. Could tell you about the shit Tommy told me about you, like how you held your mom’s hand in public until you were thirteen. How she found your porn stash in your closet because you didn’t even bother putting it in a box, like an idiot.”

He closed his eyes, licked his lips, focused on the rumble of his own words burning through his sternum. “I used to want to fuck Nancy Wheeler. Not because I thought she was hot, or even pretty, or even very interesting. This place is fucking full of snooty girls in beige cardigans, doubted I would even remember sticking it in her. But I wanted to. I wanted to fuck her.”

Steve took a sip from his beer and cleared his throat, wiped at his mouth again, turned the page. With a sigh, Billy opened his eyes just enough to trace the freckles on Steve’s cheeks, his dozy eyelashes. He said, “Bet you know all about that, huh, Pretty Boy? Wanting to fuck someone just because maybe you could. Tommy said you used to be all about that.

“I used to think about that kind of shit a lot. All the shit I missed, coming from another town. L.A. isn’t like this, like, some bubble town. You don’t grow up with the same fifty kids in your classes, or whatever. So I get here, to fucking nowhere, and everyone knows everyone, everyone knows how to fucking work the teachers, and their parents, and the law, and I can’t even fucking read a road map of this shithole, because no one has bothered making a new map of this place in fucking forever.

“I don’t think I missed anything warm or cozy, don’t put that garbage in my mouth. All I’m saying, is that it felt a lot like trying to shove pieces together, like a bad detective or something. Everyone knew everything and all I knew was Metallica, algebra, and how you looked at Nancy fucking Wheeler.”

The phone rang, jerking Billy upright as Steve’s knee collided with his beer, liquid slopping across the carpet in the half-second it lay on its side. “Shit,” Steve said, eyes wide on the stain as he held the bottle aloft. “Shit,” he said again, as the phone trilled.

Quickly, Steve slapped the beer bottle down his desk before scrabbling for the phone. “Mom?” he asked, out of breath. “Yeah, sorry, just, uh. Fell asleep. You know how I get after work. Yeah, no, the job is going good. I think Keith might be warming up to me a bit. I know it’s not the job you were hoping for, but it’s something for now, and—”

As Steve moved to look out the window, Billy crept over to the desk. It was stupid, really, to take a sip of beer, pretend he could taste. The room had grown darker than he remembered, sky splashed orange and deep purple from the sun kissing the horizon, and he felt old, so old, as Steve murmured to his mother, “I know. I miss you too. I love you. Goodnight.”

The summer wind was cool on Billy’s skin, sent goosebumps scattering up his arms, hairs pulling up along the back of his neck. All the windows in the bedroom were open wide, sunset casting shadows in every corner as the breeze cut the humidity and ruffled the papers on Steve’s desk. The beer bottle still sat where it had earlier, but Billy remembered the sky growing dark, crawling under Steve’s sheets.

There was a steep drop on either side of the house, no awning to crawl out on, but for a second, Billy wondered if maybe Steve had gone on to the roof.

A car hummed up front, must have rolled over a tree branch before being put in park. Billy closed his eyes and listened to the engine die, thought about the sour taste on his tongue. He stayed like that until he heard footsteps on the cement porch and keys jangling, heard someone call, “I’m home.”

It must have been Steve’s dad. Billy sucked on his tongue before stepping out into the hall and following the voice. Parents were supposed to be around more, or so Billy was sure. He’d never had a great set of his own, but he’d seen enough after school specials and Christmas movies to get the idea. What would Mr. Harrington look like, sounding so much like his son? Would they have the same nose, same brown eyes?

But Steve stood in the foyer, tossing his rain jacket on the rack and shucking his shoes. “Babe?” he called. When he looked up the stairs, he froze, frowned, worked something over in his mouth in a way that made Billy’s stomach drop to his toes.

They were dreaming. Of course, they were dreaming.

“That you, Harrington?” Billy called, lightheaded.

“Yeah, it’s me,” Steve echoed, cheeks pinched. “Don’t cream your pants?”

With a laugh, Billy started down, one hand on the railing. With how woozy he was feeling, he thought he might need to hold on to the wall, too. It was a weird sort of power, awareness, had him licking his lips. “You expecting someone else?” he asked.

“Guess not,” Steve said, but it was garbled, half-said. Louder, “What were you doing up there?”

Billy shrugged, said, “Settling in?” Like it made sense, wasn’t creepy.

Steve put his backpack down and touched Billy’s neck, took slow breaths as he searched his eyes. “I miss you.”

“You don’t know me.”

“I still miss you.”

“You know,” Billy said, touching Steve’s waist. “That’s fucked up.”

“I know.”

“I miss you.”

“I know.”

“Who were you expecting upstairs?”

Steve looked to the second landing, bit his lip. He was gold and pink in the early twilight, skin smooth but speckled with freckles, young and too-old. A light rain was brewing outside, an evening sun-shower that pattered against the windows. The bedroom was going to get wet.

Slowly, Steve said, “It’s not important.”

“Maybe it is to me.”

“It’s not.” Steve dug his nails into Billy’s nape. “It’s not. You want take-out?”

“I could eat.”

But when Steve let go of him to use the phone, he didn’t call anyone, just stared at the mint-coloured plastic and chewed his pink lip. He ran a hand through his hair as Billy leaned on the counter. After too long, Billy pushed him to the side. “I’ll do it.”

He dialed and pressed his hip into the cupboards, let his fingers tangle in the coiled cord. The dial trilled once, twice, five times, before the line clicked. “Hello?” Max asked.

“Wrong number,” Billy said.

“It was your fault.”

Billy’s blood was cold, frozen sweat drying against his neck as his chest seized. Steve put one hand on his hip and took the phone from him with the other, pressed against his back to lean around him and put the phone back on the cradle. Instead of moving away, he held Billy to him, murmured into his shoulder. “Is she right?”

“No? No, no, no—”

Something roared. The house shook. Steve held Billy closer, closer. Hurricane rains would flood the upstairs, drown them as the house filled, but Steve stood firm, even as his chest shook as hard as Billy’s, breaths as tight and short, shocked.

“We killed you,” Steve said. “We let you die.”

Condensation collected on the inside of the bedroom window. The clock read eight twenty-six. Steve needed to be up to shower before work in about four minutes, and Billy already knew he’d complain about the cold.

“Maybe you’re haunted,” Robin said.

“What?” Steve asked. He pushed his sunglasses up higher and took a bite of his Big Mac.

Billy sat at the end of the picnic table, bored to tears as Steve and Robin at their lunch. The McDonalds was a two minute drive from the high school, and apparently Robin was _addicted to the fries_ or something, Billy didn’t know. He lay his forehead on the cold plastic table and listened to their wrappers crinkle.

“I just mean, that all seems kind of weird, right? Your stuff going missing, things moving on you.”

“Okay, but I think haunted is pretty dramatic,” Steve said.

“You just told me you thought you saw someone in your bathroom mirror.”

Billy tilted his head to watch them talk, wondered a bit about how bugs felt, if that was their perspective.

“Yeah, but,” Steve wiped his mouth with a napkin. “I was also half asleep, you know? I probably just freaked myself out. You know, like, when you’re already jumpy and you blink, and it’s enough for you to be like, fuck, did the power just go out?”

Robin bit a fry and smiled tight. “Don’t really think that’s the same as imagining an entire person, dingus.”

“Okay, but I didn’t see a whole person? I saw like, a blob, for like, three seconds.”

“You should have told Keith that’s why you were late to work. He might have thought your temporary insanity was a fun story to tell customers.”

“Fuck you.”

“Shit, I gotta add that to the board when I work tonight, that’s good.”

“I hate you.”

“Oh, little Stevie,” she cooed, smiled. She set her elbows on the table, leaned her cheek against her hand. “You just make it so fun.”

For almost all of Steve’s shift, Billy had been busy reorganizing the shelves. The way they had it was completely illogical, and if Billy was going to spend the rest of his eternity watching Steve be bad at his job, he figured he might as well help, at the very least to keep himself from going fucking insane.

It was fine. Everything was _fine_. As he’d worked, he’d set aside _The Day After_ , _Hurricane_ , _The Day The Earth Moved_ , _Kiss Me Goodbye_.

Steve found the stack of tapes by the register and rubbed his mouth, sighed. Then he put them back without a flinch, without a peep, and _Christ,_ what did a dead guy have to do to get a reaction? Not that Billy really wanted anything. Or if he did, he didn’t know what he was hoping he’d get. A flicker of recollection, maybe. Some muttered, _oh shit_ , followed by a wide-eyed conversation with Goody Two Scoops.

About an hour after Robin came in for her shift, the curly haired freak Max always hung out with walked into the store and leaned against the counter. He clicked his tongue at Robin, “How’s it going, hot stuff?”

“Oh, wow, Dustin Henderson, to what do I owe the pleasure?”

The kid smiled, all teeth, and popped his stack of tapes on the register. “I’m just returning these for Steve.”

Robin just nodded, like that was normal and reasonable, even as Steve came out from the bathroom, grinning and drying his hands on his pants. “Your child is here,” Robin drawled.

“Henderson!” Steve said, walked up to the kid and gave him a high five. “Where’s the rest of the gang?”

“They all went to Mike’s. I’m just stopping on my way over. _Someone_ doesn’t pick us up from school anymore.”

“Yeah, well, _someone_ is an adult with meaningful employment.”

Dustin raised his eyebrows, which said all he needed to about that, before turning to Robin. “I asked Steve to put some movies aside?”

“Oh—are you the one picking up _The Goonies_? Isn’t that a little, I don’t know—”

“I don’t want to hear it—” Dustin said, holding out a five. “C’mon, trade me.”

Robin rolled her eyes but started ringing him through. “Has Steve told you he’s haunted?”

“Hey, I’m not haunted—"

“Why would Steve be haunted?”

“Oh, the story is way too long for right now. You’d miss time with your little nerd friends. But trust me, he’s so very haunted.”

“Guys—”

“So I was thinking,” Robin said. “We should do a Ouija board.”

“We are _not_ doing a Ouija board.” Dustin said. “Jesus Christ. Are you insane?”

“What, you don’t want to have fun, Henderson?”

“I don’t want to _die_. There isn’t enough sage in the _world_ that could convince me to do one of those.”

“Sage?” Steve mouthed.

“Oh, sweet,” Robin said, eyes grinning. “You already know how to protect us when we use it. See? Couldn’t be a better idea.”

“You’re going to get us cursed. We are going to be cursed, and then all of our teeth are going to fall out, and then all our fingernails, _then_ blood will start running down the walls, and _then_ we’ll die!”

“Woah, hold up,” Steve said. “What kind of movies have you had me renting for you?”

“You don’t even watch them?” Robin asked.

“No? Why the fuck would I want to watch _Halloween_? I lived _Halloween_.”

“That’s not what that movie is about at all.” Dustin groaned. “It’s about a murderer who escapes police custody and goes on this gnarly killing spree—”

“Does it look like that’s the kind of thing I’d find fun on a fucking Friday night?”

“Maybe, if you even knew what fun _was_.”

“Hey, you come here to hang out with me, not the other way around.”

“Hey, dingus and smaller dingus,” Robin said, smacking her hand on the counter. “Shut up, we’re going to do a fucking Ouija board, alright?”

“We’re going to die. We’re going to get Hawkins haunted. I want that on your conscience.”

“Hawkins is already haunted,” Steve said. “That’s kind of the point.”

Dustin made a face, lips curled like his mom wanted him to find her missing ring in the compost bin. “No—”

“Saturday it is,” Robin said. “Look at us, Scoops Troop back together.”

“You said that name was stupid,” Steve said.

“Oh.” Robin shook her head, gave a humourless laugh. “It’s the absolute stupidest thing I’ve ever been a part of. But we’re in it now. It’s what it is.”

“And why doesn’t Erica have to be part of this?” Dustin asked.

Steve knocked Dustin’s cap off his head. “Because she’s eleven?”

“I’m only fifteen—”

“Yeah, so you’re a big boy.” Robin said. “C’mon, it’ll be fun.”

“Sure, yeah, fun,” Dustin said. “I’m telling my mom it’s a sleepover. So she’s probably going to send cookies. So hopefully the fucking demons waiting to murder us like chocolate chip.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up, badly done seances and Dustin's anxiety, probably.  
> Thank you all so much for reading!  
> Please hit me up on Tumlbr @eternalgoldfish, I love to talk.  
> Extra thanks goes out to uncaringerinn for being my eternal joy.  
> And as always, comments are really appreciated. I love hearing from you guys!  
> Have a great week!


	4. (on my deathbed) all i'll see is you

That night, Billy didn’t try to sleep, didn’t want to dream. He stood by the window and wondered when the Harringtons would close their pool for the year. They would have to, eventually. He didn’t know much about winter weather, but he knew about freezing water and cracked concrete. He knew temperature made things expand, contract, crumble. Felt a little like he was doing that himself, watching the pool, listening to Steve breathe.

“You’re fucking impossible, you know that?” he said, traced the lips of his murky reflection. If only he knew who he meant.

The doorbell rang at seven on the dot.

“My mom sent chocolate chip _and_ peanut butter,” Dustin said, shouldering past Steve. “You’re fucking welcome.”

It was very possible that Mrs. Henderson had no concept of how many friends her child actually had, because Tupperware container after Tupperware container were transferred from his backpack to the kitchen table, cookies joined by some kind of pasta casserole, chopped veggies, and sage.

“Do you have candles?” he asked Steve.

Mrs. Harrington kept emergency supplies for power outages above the stove, alongside the candles she kept in every room. She had a cupboard in her bathroom designated for spa supplies and unmentionables. Billy had been a little proud of her, honestly.

“I don’t know,” Steve said. “Probably? I know there’s like, that big one on the coffee table.”

Dustin raised his eyebrows, spoke to Steve like he was spending all his patience in one place. “You want me to do a Ouija board with only one candle?”

Steve rolled his eyes. “I don’t fucking know what you need, man. There are probably more than that? Go find them. Just like, don’t touch anything that looks valuable. Actually, don’t touch anything that’s not a candle.” Steve paused. “Alright, except maybe, like. You know that vase, on the side table by the stairs? You can totally break that. My mom fucking hates that thing.”

Billy knew that vase had spoken to him for a reason. Missed opportunity.

Ten minutes later, a green Ford Billy had never seen before pulled up behind the BMW. Robin hopped out and rushed around the back to grab her bags, before crouching by the driver’s window to nod at her dad.

“He thinks this is a sleepover with Stephanie,” she explained, when she dumped her bags at the base of the stairs and shrugged off her jacket.

“Shit. Should we invite her?” Steve asked.

Robin stuffed a large rectangular box at him and scowled. Billy realized she was probably a lesbian, or something like that, but. Yeah, he totally would have fucked her, if only for a chance to see someone make Steve look that fucking tired on a daily basis. Hell, he would have dated her for that pleasure.

“So, when do we do this Ouija thing? Do we just set it up like Monopoly?”

Dustin had perfected far too many grave facial expressions for a fifteen-year-old. “This is very serious, Steve. If we’re going to be communicating with spirits, we have to be doing it the right way. This thing messing with you could be a seriously powerful demon. One of _the_ seriously powerful demons, even. Some people have been possessed by Lucifer, or Zozo, or Judas.”

“In which case, wow would they be overestimating the value of your soul,” Robin added.

“Wow, would they be overestimating the value of your soul,” Steve mimicked, squinted at the ceiling.

Billy walked around the kitchen island to get a better look at what Dustin had on the counter, crossed his arms as he squinted into the containers. The cookies smelled fucking good, at least.

“As I was saying—” Dustin cleared his throat. “If this is something powerful, which it could be, we are not letting it cross through the board and into our world. Not in more ways than it already is. And we’re not welcoming anything stronger. Hawkins is already messed up enough, with all the scientist shit, and the fucking Mindflayer, and—”

The drawer behind Billy slammed shut with the jangle of cutlery, his eyes wide and heart thumping as he bit his tongue. His intention had only been to lean. Apparently, some dumbass had left the drawer open.

Dustin’s jaw hung a second while Robin pointed. “See? Haunted!” she said, like she’d won a fucking prize.

Steve was much less enthused. He held his jaw tight, looked a little like he was going to be sick as he stepped closer to the drawer. As Billy moved out of the way, Steve reached for the handle. He practiced pulling the drawer open and closed a few times before running his hand through his hair. “I don’t know if I’d say that made it haunted. I think I might have left a window open in my dad’s office. It was nice earlier, you know?”

“Steve, please tell me you’re not one of those guys who wears shorts in the winter,” Robin said. “It was too cold for that today. You’re better than this.”

“Is he?” Dustin asked.

“I don’t wear shorts in the winter,” Steve said, knocked Dustin’s hat off his head.

“Hey—”

“We have to wait until it’s dark,” Robin said. “Then we’ll set up the board and the candles, sage the house, say a few prayers, and get started.”

“Aren’t you an atheist?”

Robin scrunched her nose. “Yeah, but the ghosts don’t know that.”

Candlelight licked the living room, made Billy feel hazy, breathless, dreamy. Or maybe that was a side-effect of the burned sage coating the insides of his nose, slick, minty and chemical. If the herbs were meant to do anything, Billy couldn’t tell.

The Ouija board sat on the edge of the coffee table, mismatched candles from around the house spread around it. Robin had placed gemstones between each light, spouting some hippie bullshit about good vibes and clean energies. Apparently, she read a lot of books. Good for fucking her.

Steve was sitting on the floor next to their little sideshow, eyes glued to some spot in the darkness as he nibbled the edge of a cookie. The others had gone off in search of more candles, or maybe it was luck. Dustin had said something about the bathroom. Billy hadn’t really been paying attention, too distracted by the way Steve kept frowning and shuffling his feet, staring off like maybe he didn’t want to know. But what didn’t he want to know?

Billy took a seat beside him and stretched out his legs. “I don’t have to do anything,” he said. “Would that make it easier on you. If I did nothing?”

Of course, Steve didn’t flinch, didn’t even look his way.

“Good, because like. The afterlife is real shit, man. Gotta be doing something.”

It was stupid to be annoyed, but Billy couldn’t help but feel something hot building in him anyway, something that wanted to lash out, pull hair, scream until someone turned the lights on to find the source. Instead, he bit his tongue, closed his eyes, let his temple press heavy on Steve’s shoulder.

Steve’s breath caught.

When Billy opened his eyes, they were in the backyard. Humidity stuck his shirt to his back, had him sweating balls instantly. It felt like the sky had a magnifying glass on him, sun searing, the atmosphere trying to tunnel into his skin.

By the pool, Steve was staring beyond the grass to the forest. When he turned, his brows were pinched, tongue slowly running over his lips. He’d always had good hair, had taken to wearing so much chapstick his mouth always seemed wet, well-kissed. When had he started doing that? Billy hadn’t noticed.

“Billy?” Steve asked, shielded his eyes, squinted.

“Hey, dingus,” Robin said.

Billy snapped alert, lurched to his feet, felt like he was going to be sick. Dustin quickly took his place by Steve’s side. Cookie crumbs fell from his mouth as he asked, “Are you falling asleep already? Seriously? It’s nine thirty, Steve. What are you, eighty-five?”

“Shut up,” Steve said. He rubbed his face with his hands. “Can we just fucking do this? And then fucking go to bed?”

“I thought we were going to watch _Friday the 13 th_ after?” Robin asked.

“Sick, really?”

“ _No_.”

“Finish those cookies,” Robin said. She put one more rock on the table, added a carved piece of wood over the G on the board.

“But mom—” Steve said.

She shushed him, sharp. Said, “I’m starting to go through some _Our Father_ s, alright? So we can get this rolling?”

Billy sat on the couch behind them as she took out a piece of paper and shook out the creases. He didn’t know what he was meant to do, exactly, but he’d seen enough movies including this shit to get the jist. Wait for the go-ahead. Start fucking with the board, help them spell some words. Easy. Boring. How did people even think up this shit?

“Our father, who is in Heaven—”

“Wait, stop,” Steve said. “ _Is in Heaven_? You’re already saying it wrong.”

“It’s what I found in the prayer book in the library.”

“It’s _art_ in Heaven. Have you ever even been to church?”

Dustin scrunched his nose. “Are you claiming to be religious now?” he asked. “Because I think you gotta lot of sins to repent for if that’s the direction this is going—”

“Woah, okay. One, my parents are fucking Catholic, alright? We go on Easter, Christmas, and maybe sometimes on Thanksgiving. When they remember they’re Catholic. Second, do you think I’ve like, murdered someone or something?”

“You got me drunk on my fifteenth birthday.”

“Yeah, and you drank it.”

“You did what?” Robin asked.

Steve rubbed his face. “I was getting drunk at parties at that age, alright? I was being a fucking pal, can we all just chill out? Robin, put those down, I’ll say them.”

Robin raised her eyebrows, popped her lips, and slowly said, “Okay.”

For a moment, Steve didn’t do anything. Then he wiggled in his seat and rolled his shoulders, took a breath like he was about to fight a beast. Billy was caught, couldn’t look away as Steve rumbled out the prayer, his church-timbre pulling something in Billy’s heart, something Billy didn’t want to think of. It felt too much like want.

Steve said the prayer three times, said it until Robin joined him in the amen.

“Everyone put two fingers on the planchette,” she said, putting two of hers on. “Let me ask the questions.”

“Wait, shouldn’t I ask the questions?” Steve said. “If I’m the one who is, like, haunted?”

“Fine,” Robin said. “I don’t know what’ll happen if who is talking changes half way through. Unless you also read up on how to summon spirits?”

“Consider me summoned,” Billy said, casually leaning forward. Jesus Christ.

Steve grimaced but put two fingers on, followed by Dustin. The kid looked a bit like he was going to pass out, and frankly, Billy felt the same thing pulling in his gut, even though he knew what was going to happen, knew it was kind of a lie. There was nothing scary in Steve’s house, nothing truly supernatural. Just Billy, same old Billy, grouchy, boring.

Still, Billy couldn’t keep his foot from bouncing, felt choked by the premise. This was different than turning off TVs or leaving stacks of tapes. There were actual letters, communication. It felt too soon, too much, all at once.

After a dramatic pause, Robin cleared her throat. She started to push the planchette in a slow circle over the G and said, “Hello, spirits. Thank you for joining us today. If you’re there, give us a sign.”

“Seriously, that’s all you had to say?” Steve asked.

“Steve, shut up!” Dustin whispered.

Of all the fucking people Billy had to haunt, it just had the be the one with the most annoying friends on the entire fucking planet.

“Spirits,” Robin said again. “We bring only positive energy. Is there anybody here with us?”

Billy pinched his nose a second before getting on the ground himself, stuck between Steve and Dustin as he reached around them to put his own fingers on the wood, careful not to bump anyone. He didn’t know for sure if he could touch people, had only made contact with Steve a handful of times, but didn’t think their spooky witch act was the time to start pulling out new party tricks.

“Is there anybody here with us?” Robin asked again.

Jesus. Billy pulled the planchette to _No_.

“That isn’t fucking funny, dingus,” Robin said.

“I didn’t do that!” Steve swore, voice hitching high. “Shit. Dustin?”

“Why would I do that?” Dustin asked. “Do you think I would be a rude ghost? You have a rude ghost, Steven.”

“Guys!” Robin shushed them. “We need to concentrate. Sorry, spirit. Welcome. Thank you for joining us. Do you mind if we ask some questions?”

Billy wanted to say no again, was tempted to say no to every question, but found himself taking a deep breath, sliding the planchette to _Yes_. He wished he had a cigarette.

It was very possible that Robin was having a religious experience, the way her eyes went wide, cheeks flushed. She grinned and turned to Steve. “Your turn,” she said, hardly a whisper.

Steve cleared his throat. “Uh, spirit? Hi. I, uh. I’m Steve?”

“You don’t tell them your name,” Dustin said, nearly a hiss.

“Whatever,” Steve said, shook his head. “I’m going to ask you some questions, if that’s alright?”

There was a pause where Steve licked his lips, looked gold and young in the shadows. Then he asked, “What’s your name?”

Billy didn’t think, just pushed the planchette to _No_. His organs were twining together, choking him from the inside. It felt like his stomach bile was cooking, burning. Steve couldn’t know. Steve wouldn’t want to know.

“No?” Steve asked. “Why not?”

Robin elbowed him.

Billy took a deep breath, told himself he was being rational. Slowly, he spelled out. _C-A-N-T._

Under his breath, Dustin murmured every letter, recited them like it was a fucking spelling bee. “Can’t,” he said.

“Why?” Steve asked again.

Maybe there wasn’t enough air in the room, not enough answers, too much sage. Billy tried to still his heart and moved the planchette to _No_.

“Why are you haunting me?” Steve asked.

Doing things letter-by-letter felt nearly impossible. Billy was already too-tired, longed for the sleep he wouldn’t get, not the way he needed. He rolled his eyes. As if he knew the fucking answer. He spelled out—

“ _D-E-A-D_. Dead,” Dustin said.

“Dead?” Steve asked, eyes going wide. “Like, I’m gonna be dead?”

Holy shit. Billy quickly moved the piece to _No_.

“I think she means she’s dead,” Robin said.

“She? Why do you think it’s a she?”

“I don’t,” Robin said. “But we also don’t know it’s not. I’m not using ‘he’ as a general term just because it’s a ghost. That’s sexist.”

Christ. Wasn’t she the one saying they had to be quiet?

Steve looked like he was thinking something similar, but held his tongue, just rubbed his free hand over his face. “You’re haunting me because you’re dead?”

Billy moved the planchette to _Yes_.

“Great, thanks. Couldn’t have figured that one out.”

“Steve, you have to be nice,” Dustin whispered.

“Can you stop talking like that?” Steve mimicked.

This was going to take all night. Billy moved the planchette to _No_.

“Great, I got the one ghost who has jokes. Spirit, if you won’t tell us your name, can you at least tell us something about you? Other than dead.”

“You’re supposed to say simple questions,” Robin said, but Billy was already working on his next word.

“ _H-O-T_.”

“You’re hot?” Steve said. “Jesus fucking Christ. You got an ego too then, huh? What else? Something that might matter, maybe.”

“ _M-I-N-D-F-L-A-Y-E-R_ ,” Dustin read. “Mindflayer? It’s the Mindflayer?”

Shit. Before they could panic, Billy moved the piece back to _No_ , but it might have been a moment too late. Steve already looked gaunt and pukey, like he’d eaten something over-ripe and moulding.

“What do you want?” Steve asked.

_S-O-R-R-Y_ , Billy spelled. _S-O-R-R-Y._

“But what does that mean?”

It was too much, too fast, had waves crashing in his ears, a little girl in his mind whispering _seven feet_.

Billy moved the planchette to _Goodbye_.

They were by the pool again, sun just as hot, air as humid. Billy pulled at the collar of his shirt and grimaced at how it stuck to him. People always argued that wet heat was worse than dry heat, but Billy never saw the point, felt like both made him swim in his skin.

The monster had made Billy sweat like a pig, kept him well-fed on Clorox and the hive-mind, had him burning up from the inside. He rolled his shoulders and watched as Steve pushed his hair back behind his ears. He wondered if he’d ever feel a bead of sweat again without wanting to replace his bones.

“I saw you,” Steve said, paused. “I’ve seen you here before.”

“Yeah.”

“What do you want?”

“Nothing. I don’t know.”

Steve pursed his lips, maybe sucked on his tongue. He turned to face Billy, but kept his feet planted, held his ground, like maybe the white lawn chairs between them might block a path through from the underworld, act as salt lines, shelter Steve with suburbia.

There was no wind, just the buzzing of summer insects and the occasional tree branch that snapped in the forest. Billy walked around the table to stand by Steve, stood so close he could smell his sunscreen. Felt live-wire and summer-fried, baked into the concrete as he said, “You kissed me.”

Slowly, Steve nodded.

“Why?”

Steve shrugged, scuffed his feet. “D’unno. Wanted to.”

It was simple, breeze-easy, but had Billy’s shoulder climbing to his ears, his pulse ratcheting. “Why?”

_We killed you. We let you die._

Billy grabbed Steve’s shoulders, maybe to shake him, maybe to throw him into the pool. He wanted to rip out his throat, lick blood from clavicle to temple, hold life on his tongue.

“Billy.” Steve grabbed his elbows. His mouth was open slightly, spit-slick lips shuddering. He murmured Billy’s name like he said prayers, kissed him what that church-timbre in his mouth.

_I miss you._

Billy wrapped his arms around Steve’s neck and hauled him close, didn’t care about the way their skin stuck together in the heat as he brought one arm down around his back. It felt like his chest was beating between their lips, world distilled to that tempo, Steve’s eyelashes fluttering against his eyelids, mouth swollen with sage and chocolate chips.

He knew it was a dream, didn’t think this was ever what he wanted.

“Stay with me,” Steve said, lips still brushing.

“I am,” Billy promised, like he could do anything else.

When Billy opened his eyes, he stayed in bed, watched Steve’s chest rise and fall as he dreamed. Robin lay on Billy’s other side, her head down by the footboard and feet in his face. He’d been nervous about climbing in, wasn’t sure how to arrange his limbs, but he was too curious, too quaky, couldn’t stop it. He wanted skin on Steve’s skin, needed answers.

If anything, he’d gotten more questions. He traced light patterns on Steve’s arm in the dark, listened to Dustin snore on the floor. Steve smelled like sweat and sage, Susan’s shampoo.

“Billy,” Steve murmured, smacked his lips.

It wasn’t an opening, or an invitation, but as Billy’s nail scraped through Steve’s arm hair, he wondered. Could he? In the dream, Steve had been amenable. In the dream, Billy would have done anything Steve asked.

He ducked down and captured one kiss, just a press of lips, followed by a sigh. But when he moved back, Steve followed, nipped his lower lip, tangled a hand in his hair. Steve tugged tight, pulled Billy back to his mouth.

Billyy jerked back, surprised, forced Steve’s hand to fall from his neck to land on his own chest. Steve’s eyes shot wide open, startled like he was the one curled at the end of the bed, breathing heavy, clutching a hand over his mouth.

Steve looked around the room and smoothed the blankets over his legs, lightly touched his lips, shivered.

Billy didn’t know what to make of it. He didn’t know what to make of anything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And I've extended it by one more chapter. I'm sure at this point, no one is surprised.  
> Thank you so much for reading! I promise more ghostly deeds to come.  
> Big thanks to uncaringerinn and missroserose for helping me through the rough bits and cheering me on!  
> And big thanks to all of you for reading. As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts.  
> You can also hit me up @eternalgoldfish on Tumblr. I mostly don't bite?  
> (Hello, 2009 called, it wants it's author's note joke back.)  
> See you all next week!


	5. (will the hunger ever stop?) can we simply starve this sin?

Keith was so fucking proud of himself, so fucking smug, that Billy thought he might be sick with it. Not only had he fixed the beaten down VCR, but now he’d fixed it _twice,_ and Billy was starting to wonder if he’d have to set the thing on fire to stop its hellish loop of _Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory_.

When he was alive, Billy thought he had enough reasons to hate Keith, but apparently death wanted to keep the ball rolling.

Not that Billy really knew Keith by name when he was alive, but he’d seen him around at school, always sneering and stuffing his face with chips or candy. Or he’d see him at the arcade, where he did more or less the same thing. Now that he had moved one store over in the same building, had a shiny name tag that read _manager_ , he was somehow even more unbearable.

And Billy couldn’t even push him into a trash can. It was sad, really.

Billy was resigned to watching Steve sort videos under the glow of the neon sign behind the register, soft red catching freckles and wisps of hair as Steve tilted his head. It was different than seeing Steve in his car, driving under street lights, or seeing him warmed by candlelight. Billy had seen Steve work for days, but there was something unnerving about it now, a little raw.

Willy Wonka somersaulted and waved his arms on the TV, taught children about greed, and patience, and tasting chocolate. Billy wanted to lick the mole at the nape of Steve’s neck.

“What’s that face for?” Keith asked.

“What face? I’m not making a face.”

It was a wet Sunday afternoon. Rain whipped against the windows and rattled the door, threatened to knock the power out all together. What a blessing that would be.

“Uh, yeah, you are,” Keith said, dropping a bottle of Windex on the counter.

Steve ran a hand through his hair, shook his head a little. “It’s nothing dude, really. Just got some shit going on, you know?”

Keith squinted like that wasn’t enough, but before he could say anything, Bethany banged through the front door and ducked around the counter. “Sorry for being late!” she said.

“It’s fine!” Keith called.

A moment later, Bethany was popping back out, putting on her vest and pinning on her badge. “Thanks, Keith, I’m so sorry, you know, it’s just this weather, and I got stuck at Tommy H’s house so late yesterday. You should have come to the party. It would have been a really good time.”

The way Keith grinned and leaned against the counter was foolish, a little greasy. He stuffed his fist in his bag of Cheetos and slowly put one in his mouth. “I had to work. Some of us have to be responsible around here.”

“Anyway,” Bethany said, stepping in closer to him than she needed to take a roll of stickers off the counter. “I’m sorry I’m late. I promise I won’t do it again.”

Which, Billy had realized rather early on, was _why_ Keith didn’t mind when Bethany was an hour late, or when she stayed in the back room almost her whole shift, or called a customer ugly to their faces. There was no way in hell she would ever go out with Keith, not when she’d spent half her sophomore year trying to jump on Billy’s cock, but it was the idea of the thing that had Keith wound tight, dreamy.

It was kind of pathetic, really.

“Hey, Steve?” Bethany asked, leaning on the counter and smiling pretty as Steve looked up from his tapes. His eyes faltered over her breasts just long enough to give him away. Christ. She said, “Do you know why there’s a board in the back that says Billy Hargrove on it? It’s kind of inappropriate. He died.”

“Uh.” Steve cleared his throat. “Yeah, like, I know? I was at his funeral?”

“Okay, so?”

“So,” Steve said, drew it out as he waved a tape in the air. “He just keeps coming up lately. Robin’s been making fun of me for it.”

“Making fun of you, or making fun of him? He’s dead, that’s disgusting.”

“He also chipped one of my teeth and permanently changed the shape of my nose. Sorry if my sympathies are running a little dry.”

Billy thought it was maybe a lie, knew it from how his lips tingled and the hairs rose on the back of his neck. But he’d read rooms wrong before, been kissed but not to tell. Thought about chipped dinnerplates, cool ceramic between his fingers, and the crunch of bone under his maternal grandfather’s hand-me-down ring.

“He was a good guy.”

“He was a douchebag. Some kids I know told me he tried to run them over with his car.”

“So why are you talking about him?”

Steve stalled, looked at the ceiling. Lightning flashed, a wet newspaper smacked into the window. It all felt a little electric, a little like a swimmer standing on the diving block, about to plunge. But what Steve said didn’t match the profound thing sitting in Billy’s chest, the rattle of the shop door, the static in the clouds. What Steve said was, “It’s none of your fucking business, Bethany.”

She gasped, glanced at Keith. “Do you let him talk to your employees like that?”

“Language, Harrington,” Keith said, busy trying to see to the bottom of his Cheetos bag.

“I heard he died saving a little girl from that mall fire,” Bethany said, crossing her arms over her chest, like she knew fucking anything about anything.

“What mall fire?” Billy asked, as Steve said, “El was like, fourteen, that’s not little.”

“Wait, you know the girl?”

“Yeah, I know all those stupid kids. She’s friends with Dustin.”

Bethany said, “Then you should be fucking grateful. She would have died.”

“I said it’s none of your fucking business.” Steve ran a hand over his face, sounded more resigned than frustrated, a little weak under Oompa Loompas chanting and thunder rolling overhead.

Billy remembered the devastation, metal beams jutting out of the mall ceiling at angles they shouldn’t, fallen power cables, cracked tile. When he closed his eyes, he remembered how the beast saw it, every mannequin and potted plant just an obstacle to its hunger, its hatred. Did they burn it down with him inside? Maybe they should have.

“Maggie said he wore a powder-blue suit inside his casket. Did you look inside?” she asked.

“Why the fuck would I have looked?”

“Language, Harrington.”

“You said you went to the funeral.”

“I didn’t say I _wanted_ to.”

Something burbled in Billy’s gut, heavy like an anvil, dense like molasses, something shy of vomit and anger. _I didn’t grieve him. Don’t leave me._

The bells jangled as the front door jerked open, metal and glass bouncing against the wall as the wind took it. “Shit!” Lucas said. “Sorry, Steve!”

“It’s not his store,” Dustin said, forcing the doors closed behind them.

“It _is_ my store, though,” Keith said.

“Yeah, whatever,” Max added, rolling her eyes as she stomped through the aisles. As she reached the counter, she pushed her wet braids over her shoulders and away from her face, black running down her cheeks.

For a second, the bile in Billy’s chest itched upward, had him feeling burnt and strangled. Made him think of black in his throat, black in his veins, black pooling under his little sister’s eyes.

“Hey, so, don’t be mad, but you got a little—” Lucas said, waving at his face as he came up beside her.

Max frowned. “What?”

“Mascara,” Bethany said, fishing a Kleenex out of her pocket and handing it over. “Happens to the best of us.”

Max grimaced but took it, turned back to Steve as she rubbed under her eyes.

Max didn’t wear mascara. Make-up was too girly, would make her brains rot, even though Billy always told her that her red eyelashes were nearly invisible, made her look like a ghost, pale, gummy, babyish. It was a funnier joke, at the time.

As she wiped, Billy’s breath eased, but his chest still ached.

“Do you still have that movie on hold?” Max asked.

“And here I thought you were here to see me.”

Keith snorted, walked around the counter to throw his bag in the trash. “No one is ever here to see you.”

“That’s not true,” Steve said, at the same time Dustin said, “C’mon, don’t let him know that.”

Christ.

“No, we don’t have the movie,” Steve said. “Someone fucked up yesterday, put away all the tapes we had marked as holds.”

For once, Billy couldn’t take any credit. He slid off the counter and moved closer to Steve, tried to drink in the lines of Max’s face, her soft freckles, the round swell of her nose as her eyebrows knit. She looked the same. Same boyfriend, same friends, same disregard for daddy’s rules, the kind of disregard that was going to get them twin caskets.

“Okay, so it’s here somewhere, then?” Max said. “How hard is it to find a movie?”

“So, here’s the thing,” Steve said. “It _shouldn’t_ be hard to find, except Jacob Greensborough came by earlier and wanted every movie we had on agriculture, and apparently _Children of the Corn_ made the cut.”

“Seriously?” Bethany asked. “He didn’t want, like, _Charlotte’s Web_?”

“Oh no, he took that too.”

“I don’t care,” Max said. “You promised us a movie, dingus, where’s our movie?”

“Hey,” Steve said, pointed. “One, only Robin gets to insult me to my face like that. Two, I don’t have your stupid movie, so just pick something out.”

“Hey, wait a second,” Bethany said. “You’re Billy Hargrove’s little sister, aren’t you?”

Billy could see the second Max processed the words, caught how her breath hitched and shoulders rose, balled fists tucking into her jacket pockets. “Step-sister,” she said, pinched. “I _was_ his step-sister.”

“We were just talking about him. Apparently, Steve here talks about him a lot.”

“Bethany, shut up,” Steve, said, voice even, low.

“What?” Max asked. She had a smudge of black under one eye still, looked too much like the one Billy thought of in the mirror, on his cheekbone, in his belly.

“Something reminded me of him recently,” Steve said. “It’s nothing, don’t worry about it.”

But Max’s cheeks were already turning red and puffing out, shoulders vibrating. She never could give up a fight, had too much Hargrove in her blood, teaching her how to hold herself. Even if she was a Mayfield. Even if her only Hargrove blood came from a pact when she was nine, when she had been foolish enough to slit her thumb for her jeering older brother. “Then why is she saying it like that?”

“It doesn’t matter, Max. Can I get you a different movie?”

“It does matter.”

“Did I tell you guys Steve is haunted?” Dustin cut in.

“What?” Bethany asked.

Keith groaned. “This again?”

“What does that have to do with anything?” Lucas asked.

“It doesn’t,” Steve and Dustin said. Steve pinched the bridge of his nose, took breaths like he was hoping for patience or death.

Max didn’t look convinced, but she shoved her jacket hood over her head and grabbed Lucas’s hand. “I didn’t come here for this shit. I came here for _Children of the Corn,_ which, for the record, corn is all we have in this fucking town anyway, so I don’t even know why we’re trying to borrow the stupid fucking thing. If you don’t have it, I don’t have time for this.”

“C’mon Max,” Lucas said. “I’m sure Steve can get us something else? _Carrie_? _The Omen_? _Dawn of the Dead_?”

“Hey, wait,” Keith said. “Aren’t you guys like, way too young to be taking those out? You have to be eighteen, company policy.”

“Like anyone follows it!” Dustin said.

“I follow it.” Bethany, said, stroked a hand down Keith’s arm. Bless her bitchy heart. She’d been a horrible lay.

“I’m leaving!” Max said, grabbing Dustin with her other hand.

This wasn’t what Billy wanted. He didn’t know what he had wanted, exactly, but the rain rushing past his ears had him dizzy and hot. “Don’t you fucking go,” he shouted. He needed—he needed—he didn’t know what he needed, but Max was alive, and well, and she had told him fucking nothing. Had he worn powder-blue at his funeral? Had his father made them cut his hair?

“Max!” He screamed, and shoved the stack of tapes in front of Steve off the counter.

Bethany jumped. Steve flinched. Max didn’t even turn around. “Real mature,” she called over her shoulder.

“That literally doesn’t mean anything,” Steve called back.

“Did you say those kids were your friends?” Bethany asked, but Billy didn’t hear a response, couldn’t breathe, was too busy jogging across the store after his sister, catching the door before it could close and ripping out into the street after her.

The rain was cold, so cold he thought steam should be coming off his skin, cooling him one pinprick at a time, but it just made his heart beat faster, made him scream louder as Max’s hood bobbed down the street.

That tug started in his gut again, kept him rooted as water ran over his face and soaked his hair, kept his feet glued from taking another step.

Billy shoved back into the store, bells jangling violently as the metal met the wall.

“Shit,” Keith said, “If this fucking storm breaks any of my windows—”

No one had ever accused Billy of being mild-mannered or level headed, reasonable or calculated. He swiped at the first shelf of tapes he could see, then the row under it, and the row under it, and the one across the aisle, swiping as the rain roared and Bethany screamed.

“What the fuck?” Keith said. Billy whipped a box in his direction, heard a yelp followed by a crash.

“Get inside the back room,” he heard Steve say.

It wasn’t until Billy had knocked every tape from its shelf and had thrown Phoebe Cates across the room that he finally dropped to his knees, wheezed, tugged at his hair.

The breakroom door creaked open a smidge. Someone was crying.

“Okay,” Steve said, sounded breathless and tired. “Definitely haunted.”

Billy didn’t remember fading out, but he must have, eyes blinking open to the Harrington’s dimly lit kitchen, Steve murmuring into the phone by the sink, Chinese takeout growing cold on the counter.

“I had a pretty good day,” Steve told someone on the other end. “No, mom, no nightmares, no fights, no shit with Keith. It was just a good day, I swear.”

The woman on the other end was too soft for Billy to hear, even as he edged closer, cheeks burning, stomach rolling. Steve was lying to his mother, lying because Billy had been a child, had thrown a fit. What he should have been saying was, _something shredded my store. Something has been sleeping in my bed._

What he said was, “Mom, I haven’t had a nightmare since you left. I know you’re worried. I know, I’m not making fun of your intuition, or your mom vibes, or whatever, but I’m serious. Things are going good here. Just enjoy your trip. Is the weather nice?”

As Steve spoke, he tangled his fingers in the telephone cord, pushed his fried rice around with his fork. “Yeah, I would tell you if something was wrong. I tell you everything, don’t I?” He paused, grinned, laughed. “Okay, not _everything_ , but if you really wanted to know why I was in Amy Carlisle’s pool shed back in June—”

There was a shriek, some quickly spluttered words. Steve tipped his head back to laugh. He stayed staring at the ceiling a long time, long enough for Billy to trace his Adam’s apple with his eyes, learn the birthmarks under his jaw.

“I know, mom,” Steve said, soft. “I miss you too. But I mean it, I’m okay. I think this job is really going to work out for me.”

The moon hung heavy through the open window, night sky drenched with stars over the glowing pool. Billy’s nausea was starting to settle.

“I’m not lonely,” Steve lied. When Billy turned, his breath caught, felt pinned by big brown eyes. Steve looked right through him to the clock on the wall, said, a little dry, “There’s almost always someone here with me. I know. I love you too. See you soon.”

It was wrong to get under Steve’s sheets, wrong to close his eyes to wait, to want, but that’s what Billy did, hoped maybe if he pretended long enough, sleep would take him, would pull him through the night, mind blackened and dreamless. The long nights were the worst, the nights where Billy was alone, staring at the wall or the window, watching Steve’s chest rise and fall.

There was a certain torture to being dead that Billy hadn’t thought of, the ache of sleeplessness, of toiling away while others slept. So, he closed his eyes and measured his breaths, counted backwards from a hundred to twenty-three, gasped before he could make it to twenty-two. Steve’s strong arm wrapped around his middle, hauled him back against his chest.

Billy blinked. The air was wet-hot, humid and boiling, blood-orange evening sky dancing as heat radiated off of every surface. The food court roof was smashed in, glass stuck and spinning in mid-air like cartoon rain, gorgeous, impossible, not like Billy had time to wonder, or even had time to breathe.

The monster stood before him, hissed its hunger through his mind, but not in words, almost never in words, just in impulses, tickles, a chokehold on his limbs.

“Steve!” Someone shouted.

A gunshot blew and crackled, fizzled blue before the thunder came, fire raining upon the beast as it cried and cried.

Billy screamed. It wasn’t right. Pain burst from his shoulders, his back, his head, licked his abdomen as he crumpled to his knees. _Seven feet_ , he thought, frantically, _Seven feet_? The girl, Eleven, had snuck in his mind as easily as the beast, had pulled from him what she needed.

 _Seven feet_. A reminder of his mother, some confused thought his psyche had clung to as he sunk through his adolescence, inched towards his grave.

Something grabbed his ankle.

“Billy,” Steve said.

There was no girl behind him, no gummy tears bleeding down her cheeks, coating her upper lip with snot. Just Steve in his dirty fucking sailor uniform, blood from his busted nose soaked into the bib, black eye close to swollen shut.

Had Billy seen Steve, that night? He couldn’t remember, couldn’t think of anything but the beast hissing between his ears, the sob he couldn’t cry as he scrabbled on the floor for his master, got Harrington pinned under the meat of his thighs. He shook Steve and slammed him on the floor, could feel him breathe and quake.

“Fuck—” Steve said. Fireworks bloomed purple and green along his cheeks, caught the tears leaking from his eyes. “Fuck.”

“Don’t worry,” Billy said, felt his body move on its own, someone else’s words rumbling from his throat. “It’ll be over soon.”

“Billy,” Steve wheezed. “Billy.”

The monster grew impatient. The kids up above screamed about running low, but gunshots still rang, lights still burst, colours bounced between glass shards that refused to drop. The sky seemed strung with Christmas lights, too cheery, too cold for July.

“There’s plenty of bitches in the sea,” Steve gasped, and it should have been funny, should have knocked Billy back on his ass.

“That’s what you fucking said to me,” Steve went on. “Like you—like you didn’t think I could _see_ , unless you were right there, nose pressed in my back on the court, nearly crawling on me in the showers. Like I couldn’t—like I couldn’t smell you.”

It was all murmured, nonsensical, had the beast reeling as Billy tried to piece together what Steve could mean. He wished he could ask, but the beast chose his stops and starts, pressed the words it wanted from his lips when it suited it, not the other way around.

A carnival song picked up behind cracks and bangs, too-cheery, ice-cream-truck-sweet.

“You fucking beat my face in,” Steve said.

The monster shrieked.

“But you see me.” Steve twisted his hands to grip at Billy’s wrists, arms trapped to the cracked tiles above his head. “You always wanted to see me.”

The fog cleared one moment, let Billy gasp at the man below him, monster pushed back for an instant, his own cracked words on his tongue. “I wanted to ruin you.”

“At least you wanted me.”

The buzzing in his head swelled. The glass around them vibrated, the air as thick and agitated as the as the chemicals pumping his blood black. It was time, the hissing in his head promised. The glass fell.

Billy opened his eyes.

Steve screamed.

The Hawkins High parking lot hadn’t changed. The same students were streaming from the exit, the same cars were parked in tidy rows. Steve leaned against the passenger side door and smoked, let the wind play with his hair. The week was starting out cold and windy, the storm from the day before still hanging low like it was watching, waiting.

Billy cranked the window open an inch, just enough for the air to lick him. He didn’t dare get out. If Steve tried to leave him behind, well—he didn’t want to find out what that would be like.

“Hey, Robin,” Steve called, pushing away from the car to wave.

Still by the doors, Robin frowned, said something to her friend, and waved back. Maybe Billy should have known the friend’s name. She was pretty. Short, slender. A little too much like Wheeler, actually.

“What are you doing here?” Robin asked. “Keith didn’t tell you to come get me, did he? I don’t start until five.”

“What? No, no. I’m not working today. I can’t come see my favourite girl?”

Robin raised her eyebrows. “I’m a woman, dingus. And you look like shit. What’s up?”

“That’s harsh.”

“I’m not going to lie to you.”

“Fine.” Steve took a deep drag, exhaled smoke through his nose. “I need to borrow your Ouija board.”

Billy’s stomach dropped.

“What? I have to work tonight. We can do it on Friday, I guess, if you really want? See if Dustin is free again?”

“No, uh,” Steve said, cleared his throat. “I just need it.”

She squinted. “Wait, you’re not dumb enough to use it on your own? You’re dumb, but you’re not that dumb. That thing messing with you could be a demon. It said it could be the Mindflayer.”

“It also said it was hot. I’m thinking it’s not the most reliable narrator.”

Robin gave a dry laugh, shook her head, said, “That’s the one thing you learned in English class, huh?”

“Hey, I was a good student!”

“You weren’t,” Robin said. She ran a hand through her hair. “I think it’s a bad idea.”

“I love you.”

“Please, spare me. Give me a ride home and I’ll give it to you.”

Stomping out his cigarette, Steve opened the door and waved his arm. “After you, m’lady.”

Fuck.

“Never call me that again.”

As Billy scrambled into the back seat, he tripped over the console, hit his chin off the leather. “Fuck,” he said again. It was unfair, really. The clergy had lied, death liberating you from pain, and all that bullshit.

“Did you hear something?” Robin asked.

Slowly, Steve whistled. “Too many things.”

There was no pomp or circumstance. Steve waited until dark and lit a single candle, kneeled in front of the coffee table like a boy at prayer. He licked his lips and closed his eyes, waiting, or second guessing, or talking himself down. Billy didn’t know, felt like he needed to find his own faith as he crouched next to Steve. Every nerve in his body shook, jump ropes slapping against his bones.

Slowly, Steve opened his eyes. Up close, he was always gorgeous. Tonight, he was sleepy but alive. He leaned back on his heels, but didn’t reach for the board. “Are you going to tell me your name?” he asked.

Billy didn’t know what he was meant to do. Were they already playing the game? He sucked on his gums, tried not to throw up.

“Tell me your name,” Steve spoke again, certain, hands on his knees.

That dumb kid, Dustin, would have been shouting about rules, about creating clean energy, about lending spirits strength by holding the planchette. Robin would have told Steve to be kind. But Billy was neither of those people, was far too stupid to listen to rules and regulations, rituals and superstition.

His instincts told him to be still. He propped up and stuck two fingers on the wood.

He could feel Steve’s eyes tracing his movements, hyper-aware as gooseflesh crawled over his skin.

“Billy,” Steve said.

Billy moved the planchette to _yes_.

“You fucking asshole.”

_M-I-S-S-M-E_

“I don’t.”

_K-I-S-S-M-E_

Steve swallowed, cast his eyes around the room, balled his hands on his knees like maybe he couldn’t breathe, like maybe he should have lit more candles. Billy was feeling it too, the headiness, too close to dreaming, drugged.

“You heard me say that? Have you been spying on me? Is that why I can’t get you out of my head?”

Billy moved the planchette to _no_. It was going to be a big fucking headache, spelling out every word. How did people have the time for this horrible, tedious practice? But maybe Billy was just salty, already exhausted as he spelled, _D-R-E-A-M-S_. Paused. _F-O-L-L-O-W-Y-O-U._

“Really?” Steve scrubbed a hand over his face, shifted onto his ass and tucked one knee up to his chest. “Of all the fucking ghosts, I get your stalker ass?”

_D-O-U-C-H-E-B-A-G_

“Oh, fucking mature. I’m flattered that even in death you’ve got some bone to pick with me, but piss off, alright? Pass on, or whatever.”

If only it was that simple. Billy moved the planchette to _no_.

“You’re ruining my life.”

_P-R-I-N-C-E-S-S_

“Jesus Christ.” Steve covered his face with his hands. “ _Billy_ , please. I know you don’t fucking care, but I’ve had enough this year, alright? My ex cheated on me, my next crush was lesbian, my dad ruined my future, and a monster fucking wrecked my life for the third time in literally less than two years, and I’m just. I’m too fucking _tired_ to have a ghost, so, if you don’t mind.”

It ached, even if Billy knew it, had seen all the creatures Steve had faced through the hivemind. Had learned about the parallel world, the tunnels, what his baby sister had been doing in a room wallpapered with children’s drawings on the one night he needed her to stay in bed.

He didn’t move the planchette to _no_. He didn’t throw the board across the room. Instead, he wrote, _C-A-N-T_.

“What, you want my help?” Steve asked.

_C-A-N-T_

“Then what? What the fuck do you want?”

_N-O-T-H-I-N-G_

“Okay, well. When you figure it out, let a guy know, alright?”

Before Billy could add anything else, Steve blew out the candle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm only a week and a half later than i promised? No big deal?  
> (I am violently sweating.)  
> Thank you everyone for reading this far! I'm constantly wowwed but also eternally grateful???  
> I hope you enjoyed this chapter. It was my favourite to write so far.  
> If you wanna hit me up, you kind find me @eternalgoldfish on tumblr.  
> Extra huge big love to uncaringerinn, oephelia, Delphineygt, and missroserose. your suggestions and kindness were instrumental.  
> And as always, feedback is loved and appreciated.  
> Have a great week!


	6. that little kiss you stole, it held my heart and soul

“ _We’re on a highway to Hell_!” Billy shouted, spun in a circle as the boombox blared.

“Jesus fucking Christ!” Steve shrieked, jolting upright in bed. He scrabbled for his alarm to check the time, jumped and dropped it when it started beeping, loud and angry. Billy was an asshole, alright? Be he wasn’t _that_ big an asshole.

“Didn’t know you liked AC/DC, Pretty Boy, from the way you keep turning it off in the car,” Billy said, grinned as Steve shoved the blankets off and walked right past him to turn off the music, didn’t see or hear him, which was typical, expected, made Billy far more pleased than he really should have been.

“This isn’t fucking funny,” Steve said.

Billy waited until Steve’s back was turned to hit play again.

“Glad to see you’re still a fucking asshole,” Steve snarled, but he didn’t bother to turn off the music, just went into the bathroom and slammed the door behind him.

Yeah, Billy decided, it was a pretty good morning.

After the night before, Billy had expected things to be awkward, spent far too long staring out Steve’s window, watching the glow of the pool, thinking about the way the clock ticked and Steve rustled around in bed. It was hours before Steve was out cold, snoring soft. Billy didn’t want to risk getting in bed, figured there was no way he was welcome.

It wasn’t like Billy had chosen any of it. Not for the first time, he wished he had some kind of answer, just like, a sign from God, or a shoddily written manual on mortality and the universe, reasons for being mostly dead.

Billy was pretty sure he was fully dead, but it was hard to process sometimes, especially when Steve had pulled him close before, instinctively kissed him back. When he could _feel_ his lips, even if he couldn’t taste them, could smell but never truly breathe. He felt messy, too human, not human enough.

So he watched the water, listened to Steve move, counted time. When Steve slept, Billy waited.

Steve showered and dressed, made his way down to the kitchen like he did every morning. He always ate cereal or toast for breakfast, always washed it down with sugar-spoiled coffee and half a glass of orange juice. He paused in the entryway to the kitchen, let his jaw drop.

 _MORNING PRETTY BOY_ the fridge said, cheery metallic letters only the Harringtons would buy gleaming from its face. Steve’s silver spoon was showing, that his mom wouldn’t buy standard plastic. It made Billy’s blood boil about long enough for him to start to spell.

“Leave me the fuck alone,” Steve said.

When he turned from stuffing his toast in the toaster, the fridge read, _EASIER THAN OUIJA_.

“Oy-jaw?” Steve said.

Of-fucking-course. Billy ignored Steve’s gasp as he pushed the magnets around in front of him, wondered the shifting metal must have looked on his end. _WEE-JEE._ One more letter than he’d run out of Es.

“Oh,” Steve said, frowned. “Well, I wasn’t planning on trying it again, so thanks for nothing. You can go now.”

_SAID I CANT_

“Well, you can’t stay here.”

_TOO BAD_

Steve rolled his eyes, tugged open the fridge. “How do I even know it’s you?”

It was frustrating, standing by the door, waiting for Steve to step back so Billy could keep talking. It felt a little too strangling, a little too like being under water, mouth stitched shut.

_WHY WOULD I LIE_

“Because you’re an asshole.”

_PRINCESS_

“Stop calling me that.”

Billy didn’t touch the letters, hoped that spoke for itself as Steve added water to the coffee maker. Once it was happily gurgling, roasty-rich faint skunk-smell filling the kitchen, Steve turned back around.

He blinked at the letters, asked slowly. “How can I know this is you and not some Upside Down shit?”

 _WHAT_ , Billy asked, didn’t change his other word.

“Where the Mindflayer comes from.”

And how Billy had missed that term was beyond him. It felt like he was constantly filling in blanks he didn’t know he had, was trying to piece together a life he’d thought he’d lived. He had memories that weren’t his, things gifted to him by the beast, fed through his hive-mind, intentional or otherwise. He knew why that Byers kid slept with a nightlight. Apparently, he’d missed its name.

 _IM BILLY_ , he promised.

“So was it.”

_NO_

For a few minutes, Steve looked like he wanted to believe, didn’t make a peep. Then his coffee maker finished and he turned to make a cup. “Well, obviously something is here, even if you’re lying. And I’m not alright with that, alright? I don’t want you here. I don’t even know what you are, or what you can do, and I don’t really like that you’re literally everywhere.”

And Billy didn’t have enough letters to explain that everywhere was wrong, that his bubble extended as far as Steve could throw his voice. He didn’t have enough letters to explain he didn’t know either.

 _IM SAFE_ , he promised, didn’t mean it for himself.

“You can’t prove that either.”

Which was fair, but Billy just felt his gut growing lower, wanted to puke and shout and knock all the magnets off the fridge. Instead, he wrote, _CLOSE YOUR EYES_ , like he knew why he wanted that, or what he was even planning.

Steve grimaced, looked like he wanted to ask why, but did it after a second.

Billy’s breath caught, left him standing a foot away, watching Steve’s Adam’s apple bob long enough that Steve asked, “Was that it? Very impressive, I gotta say—”

Time paused, snapped Billy from his gag. He reached across the space with a jerky arm, but his touch was soft where his fingers grazed Steve’s cheek, knew he’d met his mark when Steve’s shoulders stiffened, when he gasped.

Billy knew what he wanted to do but not why, knew what he had to take even without knowing what Steve wanted, as if it would explain even a single thing. He stepped in closer and cupped both of Steve’s cheeks between his palms, let his hands run down across his neck and to his arms.

“Fuck,” Steve said.

“Yeah,” Billy agreed.

When Steve opened his eyes, he seemed searching, unconvinced, but calm. Billy licked his lips, had no fucking clue what that meant.

“I’m not telling Robin it’s you,” Steve said, checking his hair in the backroom mirror before sliding on his vest and pinning on his name tag.

Billy only half heard, still dizzy from blinking in the kitchen and coming to as Steve rushed into work. His stomach had him feeling green, wondering if that was even possible.

“Billy?” Steve said. He paused like he was waiting for a sign, but continued even though one never came. “She’ll give me too much shit about it. Not that I got to tell you why. Stalker.”

“Takes two to tango,” Billy muttered, but the backroom door was already shutting behind Steve, and Billy swore.

It wasn’t like he could fucking open the door himself. He didn’t need Keith bitching about that all day.

By the time Robin came in, Billy had been liberated from his purgatory, but not before he had time to rearrange all the broken cassettes by title. Not than anyone would be fucking looking for them that way.

He followed Steve around the store as Steve put back tapes, tried not to think too hard about how grating he found Shirley Temple’s voice as Keith hummed along to every song in _The Little Princess_.

Or maybe it was Keith that was grating. Billy didn’t have the patience anymore to think about it too deeply.

Robin fumbled into the store with arms laden with stuffed grocery bags, a grin on her face as she dropped half of them on the counter. “You won’t believe what I found at the thrift store today.”

“Is it a whole new wardrobe?” Steve asked. Drawled, really, clearly as half-asleep on his feet as Billy felt.

“It’s someone’s wardrobe,” Robin said, sticking her hand into one of the bags. “At least, I’m pretty sure it is. Only one douchebag around here kept this signature look.”

Billy’s stomach dropped.

“Had?” Steve asked. He stepped towards the counter as the movie ended, even though he’d been waiting to hit rewind.

Keith pulled off his vest and balled it up in his hands. “Can you do show and tell after you put you clock in? I got a date.”

“With your left hand?” Billy asked. It was a shame no one could hear him. He thought he was quite the comedian.

“Fine,” Robin said, sighed, rolled her eyes. She stepped into the back room with Keith, which was Billy’s cue to go back to the tapes. He was probably overthinking things, felt stupid for being so vain.

The bags behind him rustled, followed by a gasp.

The back door opened and closed. “Really, dingus? You were supposed to wait.”

“You never said that,” Steve said, but his voice pinched kind of weird in the middle, sounded a little like he was swallowing sand.

“It’s his, isn’t it?”

Billy turned in time to see the back door open and Steve quickly tuck whatever he was holding under the lip of the counter, so when Keith came out he jaw see shopping bags and tight smiles.

“Don’t burn the shop down,” Keith said.

Robin gave a salute, watched his back until the door swung shut. “I’m right, aren’t I?”

Slowly, like his shoes were full of cement, Billy edged closer.

Steve held up the jean jacket, hands shaking a little in the mid-October chill. “Yeah,” He said, rubbing his thumb over the lipstick stain Courtney Mactintosh had pressed to Billy’s shoulder an early morning in September. “This is so fucked up, Rob.”

“You’re telling me. I think I’ve got his leather jacket in here too, and the jeans with the rips—”

“No, I mean. Bringing this here. Buying this. It’s fucked up.”

Robin paused, scratched her head. “I couldn’t leave it there. Like, I didn’t really know him, you know? But it was just. Fucking sad to see it all. Like, when a family member passes, you cherish stuff, don’t you?”

“And why do you think I should have it?”

She shrugged, just a quick pop of shoulders, made Billy want to hurl. “Just thought someone should have it, I guess. And Bethany said you’d been talking about him again, so I thought—”

“How much did this cost you?”

After a second, she licked her lips. “Not a lot. Guess they felt shitty, even having it on sale.”

Billy wasn’t sure that was true, but he came up behind Steve anyway, set a hand on his shoulder, frowned when Steve didn’t flinch, didn’t even look.

Steve put the jacket on the counter and rubbed his face. “I’ll put it in my house. Maybe ask Max why it was there.”

“Oh—” Robin said. She fussed with another bag, revealing a beat-up _Scooby-Doo_ lunchbox that made Billy’s eyes sting.

Before Steve could finish asking, Robin was popping the latches, exposing a collection of tapes. “This could have been dumb,” she admitted. “But there’s a lot of metal music in here. And someone wrote B.H. on the back, I think. The marker is really faded, but.”

“This is so fucked up,” Steve said again.

Billy knocked a tape off the shelf, walked back to the VCR in the corner.

Steve didn’t even jump, just rubbed at his mouth. “Fuck, Robin.”

“Sorry,” She said.

When Billy pressed play, they sure as fuck weren’t watching Shirley Temple anymore.

From there, things looked up, if that was even fucking possible with the way Billy’s chest ached, stomach lurching every time he thought about his leather jacket hanging between moth eaten Hawaiian shirts and unwanted Christmas sweaters. It wasn’t surprising, but he wished it was. He hoped Max would want his stuff, that his mom would have asked for some when she came to the funeral, wanted a few pieces of the son she didn’t.

He realized it wasn’t fair to think like that, but she fucking deserved it, so.

The place was loaded with patrons all evening, which made it easy for Billy to hover behind Robin and Steve behind the back counter, entertaining himself by listening to them ramble at customers. Steve Harrington, king of Hawkins High, had zero game, and Robin was happy to throw him under the bus every time a cute senior with a great rack came in asking for his recommendations.

Steve, as it turned out, was hilariously bad at his job. Sure, he could sticker things, but for a guy who spent forty hours a week watching movies on loop, he knew basically shit all.

And Robin, well. She was in band, so that said enough about her social skills.

“Do you know if _Jaws_ is appropriate for a ten-year-old?” the squat woman at the counter asked, pushing up her glasses. She looked at Steve like she didn’t care about the answer, was looking more at his lips than his eyes.

“Uh,” he cleared his throat. “I let my brother watch it at like, fourteen? That’s kind of the same?”

“It’s PG,” Robin cut in.

The woman pointed at the front of the box. “Yes, but this sticker says it might be too intense for children.”

“It’s kind of gory,” Steve said. “But like, kids like that, don’t they?”

The woman looked stricken.

“He also doesn’t have a brother,” Robin added.

“I meant Dustin—”

“Dustin Henderson?” the woman asked. When Steve and Robin looked at her at the same time, she shrugged. “It’s not a common name. I’m in a book club with his mom.”

“Yeah, so you know he’s an okay kid,” Steve said. “He watched it and he turned out alright.”

Jesus Christ. Billy couldn’t stop his laugh, had to bite his fist. Dustin, that weird, jabbering kid, wasn’t the picture of normalcy by any means.

Robin and Steve both whipped around, wide-eyed, and made Billy’s laugh die in his throat.

“Sounds like your co-worker back there heard a real knee-slapper,” the woman said.

With hub-cap wide eyes, Robin cleared her throat. “Probably not, you know, he’s one of those guys who thinks everything is funny.”

“I’ll check on him,” Steve offered, too fast. Billy had to hurry to make it through the door behind him.

In the backroom, Steve turned in a circle, squinted. “You’re an asshole.”

“Why?” Billy asked, but frankly, he was too startled himself to know why he was an asshole. Steve didn’t hear, anyway. But what he _had_ heard—

“You can shit on a lot of stuff, alright? But Dustin is not one of those things. I’m the only one allowed to laugh at shit like that.”

Which, what—

“And if you can talk to us, why didn’t you fucking say anything?”

Billy paused, had to catch his breath. “I can’t,” he said.

Steve was looking the wrong way, didn’t even blink. “Fine, be fucking choosy.”

Something gripped Billy’s lungs, something tight and scratchy. He grabbed Steve’s arm, made him jerk, but when he went to touch his face, Steve didn’t turn his head.

“Tugging on me isn’t funny.”

But Billy hadn’t let go.

The rest of the shift went by like molasses. Billy sat in the back, tracing the seams of his jacket. Just when he thought he was getting the rules, they shifted, kept shifting too often for him to plant his feet. His own words kept swimming in his head, a philosophy he could no longer keep.

“I’m just saying,” Erica said, shoving her way into the back, “That you still haven’t finished paying your debts.”

“You’re not allowed back there—” Steve said, hot on her heels.

“I wasn’t allowed in the back at Scoops. I wasn’t allowed in the back of the _Russian military base_ you made me infiltrate. But somehow that was peachy-keen.”

Steve rubbed his face. “ _Look,_ I don’t have any ice cream here, alright? And you know that, so what are you on my ass for?”

Erica clucked her tongue. “Oh Steve, you are the dumbest adult I have ever met.”

“Hey!”

Billy couldn’t help but grin, sure it was all teeth.

“I meant after your shift. You do get to leave here at some point, right?”

“Yeah, but.” Steve grimaced. “Fine, alright? We’ll get Dustin, and we’ll go to Benny’s for sundaes. That good enough for you?”

After a moment of false consideration, she put her hands on her hips and shrugged. “They don’t have free samples, but I guess it’s alright.”

“Oh, lord forbid.”

The door swung open, but it wasn’t Robin, demanding Steve came back on the floor. “Steve—" Dustin said, grinned too-big, but stalled in his tracks when he saw Erica. “What are you doing here?”

“Jesus Christ, did neither of your parents teach you respect? This is my place of employment.”

“Please, like you even respect this shit hole,” Dustin said.

“Hey, it’s my fucking shit hole, alright? And I resent you even calling it that. This place can be nice.”

Dustin shook his head and sighed, met Erica’s eyes before waving a half-articulated gesture towards Steve. She nodded like she knew. Billy was starting to think he liked her.

“Is there a reason you came here?” Steve asked, like he needed thirty years of beauty sleep.

“Robin’s not letting me take out _Halloween II_.”

“Yeah, because you’re a toddler.”

“A toddler you let drink alcohol. This is bullshit.”

Erica clucked her tongue and shook her head again. “Morals, Steve.”

But before Steve could defend himself, Dustin was walking off to Robin’s white board, pointing a grubby finger at it. “Uh, Steve, wanna explain why Billy Hargrove’s name is on here? I miss something?”

“Yeah, apparently I suck?” Steve offered.

“No shit, I knew that already.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

It was a losing battle, really, because when Dustin turned, his eyes went wide. “And you have his jacket? I think we need an intervention, dude.”

“Robin bought it,” Steve said, snatching the jacket form under Billy’s hand. “Can both of you fuck off for another hour until I’m done working? Then I’ll deal with your stupid ice cream and chaperone your little date.”

“Date?” Erica asked, before pretending to gag.

Dustin looked like he’d seen a ghost, eyes half-shocked while his nose curled up in disgust. “Fucking gross, dude. Did we trip on something sensitive? You got a hard-on for that dead dickhead?”

Which, well. Hearing someone else say it made Billy suddenly nauseous. Hawkins wasn’t open-minded, was full of a lot of grumpy old white men and their jaded, picket-fence wives.

“Out,” Steve ground out, shoving the kids towards the door. “Now.”

Billy didn’t rouse until he was sitting in Steve’s passenger seat, street lights filtering into the car as they drove the long way home. Cyndi Lauper thrummed softly over the speakers, and for once, Billy didn’t change it, just pressed his forehead into the cool glass, breathed. Tried not to be sick and tipsy from the whiplash, all his lost hours.

“Those fucking kids will be the death of me,” Steve muttered, checking his mirrors, and Billy knew it wasn’t for his benefit, but it still made him smile.

With his favourite jean jacket wrapped around Steve’s desk chair, Billy was feeling a little braver, a little less like rocks were lying on his chest as he got into bed next to Steve, watched his eyelashes flutter in his sleep. He lightly traces Steve’s cheekbone with his fingertips, pulled his hand back when Steve frowned and mumbled before rolling away.

Everything was so inconsistent. He wanted to fucking scream.

Instead, he rest his head on one bent arm and closed his eyes, thought maybe he’d feel better with the illusion of sleep.

When Steve shifted and rolled against him, their bare arms brushing, Billy wasn’t even surprised.

The sun was blinding, mid-morning light cutting through the glass and heating the house. Steve’s living room seemed almost upside down, coffee table flipped on its side and throw pillows tossed off the couch. Steve sat on the floor in front of the fireplace, breathing heavy as he frantically tossed all the magazines out of the basket they kept under the TV stand.

“Steve?” Billy asked.

“I can’t find it,” Steve said, throwing another magazine on the ground.

Billy crouched beside him and tried to lean to see his face. He asked, “Can’t find what?”

When Steve spoke, his shoulders shook. “I don’t know, but I need to find it.”

“I could help you look?”

“No, no,” Steve said. “You’re dead.”

“I’m right here.”

“You’re _dead_.”

Billy grabbed Steve’s jaw, jerked his head to see him. Said slow, “I’m right here. Think. What are you looking for?”

Steve took a slow breath and blinked, his eyes straying to Billy’s throat. “Answers, I think.”

“Well, you’re sure as shit not going to find that in a box.”

Steve’s shove took him by surprise, had him toppling into the stonework lip around the fireplace. “Fuck. _Fuck_ ,” Billy said. When he reached around to check, his hair was matted in blood.

“Sorry, sorry,” Steve said. He grabbed Billy’s arm. “Shit, I didn’t mean—I always mess things up—I—”

“Hey, Pretty Boy,” Billy said, “I’ve had worse.”

His vision was growing rosy and blurred, a side effect of pain or short-term blood loss, or knowing the tang of smoke in his mouth was a dream, a memory, or a myth.

“You did. You’re dead.”

“Kiss me.”

“What?” Steve asked, clipped, afraid.

“Kiss me,” Billy said again. “See if I’m dead.”

After a pause, Steve gingerly leaned forward. When his lips brushed Billy’s they were as hot as the room, equally sticky and sweet from layers of strawberry chapstick and half-dry sweat.

“You’re not cold,” Steve said. “You smell like cigarettes.”

“Want one, too,” Billy said, before kissing him again, fingers gentle in his hair, dreamworld too fragile, too likely to tip, send them toppling.

“You heard me talking to Robin, but you don’t really know I want this.” Steve spoke in nearly a whisper, eyes still closed. “You’re dead and you don’t know.”

Billy pulled back a bit and frowned. “Christ, you really are stupid.”

Steve’s eyes snapped open. “What?”

“I’m here.”

“You keep saying that.”

“I know. I mean I’m _here_.”

The sun shifted, caught directly on Steve’s hair, made Billy’s breath catch. The phone started ringing. “I think that’s your mom,” Billy said.

“You’re here.”

“That’s what I said.”

“I can’t find it.”

“The phone is ringing. You should get it.”

Steve stood up from the carpet, chest heaving, the collar of his polo shirt sticking to his skin with sweat. “You’ve been kissing me.”

“Jesus, does your brain even work?”

“Billy—”

“The phone.”

Steve walked to the kitchen wall and ran the back of his hand across his mouth, before plucking the phone from the cradle. “Hello?” he asked.

Billy’s eyes snapped open, disoriented, but not from the shift, not from the gasp rocking from his lungs.

At some point Steve had shifted closer, instinct or muscle memory looping his arm around Billy’s waist, mouth by his neck. Billy could feel every puff of warm breath, imagined Steve’s eyes shifting rapidly in their sockets, deep sleep gripping him like he gripped Billy’s belly.

It didn’t make sense. Nothing ever seemed to. His heart beat too loud in his ears, even though he was missing a heart to beat. He thought maybe there would be acid or bile on his tongue, if he had more than phantom feelings of taste.

The first time Steve had done this, it was for a second. When Billy woke, he was on the other side of the bed. This was different. This was Steve shifting behind him, holding him a little tighter as the alarm clock went off and he grumbled, still half-asleep.

“You get it,” Steve said.

“Yeah, good fucking luck,” Billy said, but from the way Steve huffed, he knew he hadn’t been heard. Hadn’t been expecting to be heard anyway.

The next second, Steve inhaled like he’d been shot, and Billy didn’t need to be facing him to figure out why, put the pieces together pretty fast when Steve jerked back and threw himself off the bed.

“Don’t fucking do that!” Steve said.

“I fucking didn’t,” Billy snapped, but it didn’t matter, because Steve couldn’t hear a single shitty thing he wanted him to, just bangs and bumps, bodily sounds Billy meant to keep to himself. He didn’t really think, just knocked Steve’s stupid bowling pin off the dresser, wasn’t yet satisfied when he knocked the lamp down after.

“Fuck you.” Steve laughed, but there was no humour in it as he rubbed his eyes and shook his head. “Just. Fuck. You’re cleaning that up.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you like smooches. And sadness. But also annoying teens and pre-teens? I try.  
> Thank you again for being so wonderful and patient as I consistently destroy my own deadlines.  
> And thank you for reading? I love all of you. But extra big love to missroserose and uncaringerinn for helping and supporting me.  
> As always, this is the part where I politely beg for your feedback because it really does this bleeding heart some good.  
> Have a great week!


	7. tides will bring me back to you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _That little kiss you stole_   
>  _It held my heart and soul_   
>  _And like a deer in the headlights I meet my fate_   
>  _Don't try to fight the storm_   
>  _You'll tumble overboard_   
>  _Tides will bring me back to you_

Billy wasn’t going to clean up Steve’s lamp. He wasn’t the fucking maid or some shit. But if he picked it up and dusted it off a bit before setting it upright next to the dresser, it was just so no one would trip over it. The bowling pin on the other hand? That could get fucked.

The water hitting the shower floor unlatched something tight in Billy’s chest, helped him take a few deep breaths as he walked over to his jean jacket and danced his fingers along the seams, plucked at the lapels. He’d bought the jacket himself, using lifeguard money from the summer before, before he knew his life was going to be picked up and torn apart. Before he knew he was going to be shipped off to the middle of fucking nowhere, Hawkins, Indiana, home of snarls and teeth.

His dad really fucking knew how to pick real-estate.

He took the jacket off the chair and bit his lip, ran his thumb over the lipstick stains and cigarette burns, the snagged denim along the back where he’d caught it hopping over the fence into Old Man Leery’s yard one day with Tommy H, back when screaming with laughter and getting high were his top priorities.

Maybe. He ran a hand through his hair. Maybe? He shrugged the jacket on, swallowed as it wrapped around him as it should, fit how it always did, streamlined to the shape of his body from a fall and winter of love and abuse. It still smelled a little of cigarettes and his favourite cologne, had his throat closed and Adam’s apple working.

With less forethought than he should have had, he pushed open the bathroom door, ignored how Steve shouted and quickly turned off the water. He quickly rubbed at the fog on the mirror, had to see himself, couldn’t think as the shower curtain behind him ripped open, Steve stepping out to grab a towel. He didn’t care about Steve. He couldn’t care about Steve.

Looking back at him was a man far more himself than he’d been in weeks.

Behind him, Steve gasped.

“What the fuck,” Steve said, struggling on some underwear. “What the _fuck_ ,” he said again, like that explained absolutely fucking anything.

Billy couldn’t turn from the mirror if he wanted to, felt suddenly too exposed, as if he was the one naked, caught most vulnerable.

“How the fuck are you doing that?” Steve asked. “Why are you in my mirror? Can’t you get the hint and leave?”

It stung, left Billy’s tongue bitter, mind spinning. He lifted his arms, but Steve wasn’t looking at the denim on his back, he was looking in the mirror.

“Stop fucking around,” Steve said, but his breath was catching the next second, eyes wide.

Steve watched Billy in the mirror the way Billy was watching him, the intention of it shaking him as Steve stepped forward. “Why don’t you ever fucking answer me?” Steve asked. “Being in my mirror, being a fucking pervert, isn’t funny, Hargrove.”

But that was the thing, wasn’t it? Billy turned around, slow, and leaned his ass against the bathroom counter, watched Steve look right through him.

“I can still see you with your back turned to me, idiot,” Steve said. “I need to use the mirror.”

“I’m looking right at you,” Billy said, but it was pointless, didn’t stop Steve’s teeth from clenching.

“ _Steve_ ,” Billy tried again. Nothing.

It felt like everything Billy had done since his death was stupid, would have gotten him socked when he was alive, or would have made him sock someone, maybe, but there was something alarmingly freeing about knowing he could hide anywhere, could make himself nothing, if it wouldn’t be so incredibly fucking boring. So, he made one more stupid choice, reached out to touch Steve’s shoulder.

Before he’d even made contact, Steve took a sharp breath, only half-flinched when their skin brushed.

“What?” Billy asked, before looking over his shoulder. In the mirror, they were both there, touching, together.

“What the fuck,” Steve asked, kept murmuring it as Billy turned back to him and put a hand on his other shoulder, fingers sticking to pink, warm, still-wet skin.

“I don’t know,” Billy said, soft. He took a deep breath and slid his hands down around Steve’s waist, meant to hold him close, prove he could be solid. Not that Steve didn’t already know, from lying against his back, closing his eyes to Billy’s fingertips, catching his lips.

“What are you doing?” Steve asked, but he tucked his chin over Billy’s shoulder, held him back.

Billy couldn’t see, but he imagined Steve was watching them. He closed his eyes and focused on how Steve’s breathing moved in time with his, how Steve’s wet hair felt pressed against his cheek.

“You’re such a fucking pervert,” Steve said.

Billy shrugged.

“Why were you in my bed?”

It was an unfair question, not something Billy could answer with a shrug or a nod, still too trapped, stifled, silenced. Steve seemed to know it too, didn’t wait too long before he was tightening his arms around his waist. He asked, “Were you in my dream? Actually there, actually you?”

Jesus Christ. How many times did Billy have to say it? But he nodded yes, felt Steve tense.

“So, you really kissed me?”

Another nod, Billy’s hands fanning over Steve’s bare back.

“Why?”

Billy wished he would stop asking, honestly. He didn’t have any more answers than Steve was giving, and Steve had told him a whole lot of nothing. He’d kissed Billy first. He’d said he wanted him. He wanted him.

“I don’t know what we’re doing.” Steve’s words were hardly formed, murmured into the denim of Billy’s shoulder, pressing damp warmth into him in a way that made Billy wish life transferred that easily. Maybe Steve could breathe him whole again. Could that be an option?

Billy shrugged.

“I have to get ready for work. I’m still mad at you.”

Even if Billy could speak, there was nothing he could say to that.

Of course, when the house flooded with Def Leppard about ten minutes later, Steve was even angrier, but that was kind of the point.

_MORNING PRINCESS_

“Jesus Christ,” Steve said, only casting a quick glance at the fridge on his way to the toaster. “Do you have to do that? I don’t have time for this right now.”

 _RUDE_ , Billy wrote. He leaned against the counter, watched as Steve fumbled to get the tie off the bread.

“It’s really not. I’ve been thinking, and—”

Billy rolled his eyes.

“I’m really not cool, with all this? Like, you kissing me is like, taking advantage? It’s shitty. And it’s also super fucking annoying that you won’t just tell me what the fuck you want or like, talk to me.”

 _I DO_. Billy wished he had a question mark, or literally any kind of punctuation. Fucking rich-as-shit magnets.

“You don’t? I know you can talk. You already fucking did it. You’re just—fucking around, and fucking with me, and it’s not cool?”

It ached, felt like two steps forward, five steps back, made Billy’s chest feel hot and tight, teeth clamped together too-hard. _I CANT_ , he put, _MEAN IT_ , then below, _MAGNETS SUCK._

“Right, okay, well. Keep your hands to yourself.”

_YOU KISSED ME FIRST_

But magnets took fucking forever, and Steve didn’t look at the fridge again, just took his toast and his thermos of coffee and left.

It hadn’t even been a month, and already Billy was feeling like every day was the same fucking day, the same fucking shit, the same hours and hours of watching Steve. It was the same circular conversations that added to how sick he felt when he blinked and found himself in a different place, the repetitive crinkle of stickers being peeled from sheets and stuck on tapes.

The only thing that had changed was the way Steve looked at the roof sometimes and sighed, warned Billy not to fuck with things in front of Keith like Billy had even fucking done anything in days. He was being _good_ , which was basically unheard of from him, so. He was trying.

“So, like, I think I might have a Halloween party?” Steve said, obviously aiming for casual as Robin pulled a face at him.

“Great?” Robin said. “Which has what to do with me, again?”

“I mean, you’re kind of my best friend? Duh?”

She raised both her eyebrows. “Wow, dingus, I’m honoured.”

“Shut up. I want you to come.”

Robin laughed. “What, so I can get drunk with some of Hawkins High’s past elite? No offense Steve, but that’s really not my idea of a rousing Friday night.”

“Halloween is on a Thursday.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I also never said it would just be my friends? I’m inviting the whole school.”

“Oh, that sounds very mature. Why don’t you have friends your own age?”

“You _are_ my friend my age.”

Robin grinned like she knew, was just fucking with him. “Are Nancy and Jonathan coming?”

“I don’t know, probably? I’m going to ask, but you know how freaky Nance has been about her homework, senior year and all that, and Jonathan visits pretty often but it’ll probably be hard for him to get a Friday off since he just started his job, so—”

“Fine, fine.” Robin reached over to pat his arm. “I guess I could grace the masses with my presence to keep little Stevie company.”

“I’m pretty sure you’re the worst friend I’ve ever had.”

“Oh, honey. We both know that’s not true.”

Fucking gag him, Billy almost wished he could die again, having to listen to that. He’d spent the morning shifting all the tapes in the romance section forward, just doing his part, helping out.

“Speaking of which,” Robin said, bracing her arms on the counter as she leaned in close. “How is our friendly little house-ghost?”

“You’re not funny.”

“I’m a fucking comedian. Well?”

Steve sighed and rubbed his face. “I don’t know, Rob, he’s been real quiet since his little meltdown in here.”

“Oh man, I wish I’d been here for that. Keith will not shut up about it. That would have been the coolest shit.”

“Really? Because the last supernatural thing we encountered tried to eat us.”

“That wasn’t supernatural, Steve. It was from another dimension. That makes it a science thing.”

“Based on what?”

“Movie genres.”

Yeah, someone needed to put Billy out of his misery.

“Is your ghost coming to your party?”

“I mean, I can’t stop him.”

Robin tilted her head. “Him? I thought we decided we were going to use female pronouns. Unless you know something I don’t?”

Christ.

Steve winced. “What? No. I’m a man-pig, remember?”

“Ah, yes, my favourite man-pig.”

The door clattered open, a gaggle of girls from the high school spilling in. “Hi Steve,” Macey Clark said, waved at him as she walked through the aisles.

Robin smirked and nodded with her chin. “Looks like it’s your time to shine, lady killer.”

Steve licked his lips and ran a hand through his hair, said, “You wish you had these moves.” But there was something half-hearted about it, a little weird when Steve glanced at nothing over Robin’s shoulder.

“Oh, green with envy,” she promised. Clicked her tongue. “Don’t be let down too badly.”

He flipped her off before turning towards the girls. He headed down the aisle next to the one they were in, spoke to them over the shelves. “Hey, ladies,” he said.

Macey smiled at Steve all sugar sweet and asked, “Do you have any good recommendations? We were hoping for something really romantic.”

“Well, I think I’ve got some ideas, they say romance is my middle name. Have you heard about—” He put his arms on top of the shelf.

Every single tape crashed to the ground.

If Billy could be in the doghouse, in the metaphorical sense, he was pretty sure Steve would have put him there a long time ago. At least, that was the impression Billy got from the way Steve shoved around the store the rest of the night, scowling at any empty space Robin wasn’t occupying.

Some kid had asked Steve why he hated the Phoebe Cates cut-out so much, which was considerably less satisfying when Billy remembered that neither of them could hear him laughing.

Steve said nothing on the drive home, didn’t even question the Slayer tape he didn’t own filtering out the car speakers. He did make a face when the first song rolled into the next and he realized it wasn’t the radio, but again, he couldn’t hear Billy laughing, so.

The air inside the car was as still as the trees, the first flurries of winter floating from the sky, far too early. “Fucking Hawkins,” Billy murmured, watching a large flake stick and melt to his window. Cold was just the absence of heat. Glass fell in gravity.

Steve cut the ignition but didn’t leave the car, stayed seated a long, long time with the window fogging from his breath.

“You’re gonna freeze,” Billy said, picked at his fingers. “It’s gonna look fucking weird when a dead guy has to call you an ambulance, Harrington.”

Steve flexed his fingers on the door handle, didn’t budge.

“Can you even _imagine_ how I would manage to do that? I’d have to shove your fat ass over to get the keys, then I’d have to play the fucking radio or something in the kitchen, then hope like fuck that maybe I could station-hop the right way. Or make like. Morse code somehow. I don’t fucking know Morse code, but maybe if I just smashed the phone a bunch of times your cop friend could guess it well enough—”

Steve sighed.

Billy ran his hands over his face, took a deep breath. “Baby, it’s fucking _cold_ outside.”

And at that, Steve laughed, rubbed his own lip with his thumb. “It’s not Christmas,” he said, but under his breath, like he maybe he’d come up with the same joke, or maybe—

“Steve?” Billy said. But Steve didn’t look at him, just tilted his head to watch the house. Maybe they should have left a porch light on.

“Hey, what the fuck, Harrington?” Billy tried again.

Nothing. Nada. He didn’t even know why he kept fucking trying, definition of madness and all that, the condition of doing the same thing over and over and _over and over_ and expecting maybe one fucking snowflake might stick, wouldn’t melt against the glass.

“You’re so full of shit,” Steve said, slow, dragged a knuckle through the condensation. “Look, I can’t know you’re there alright, asshole? But I _know_. You’re not, like, clever, or something. And I’ve lived in a horror movie a long fucking time now, so I get this shit. I know—I _know_ you wouldn’t just be polite and fuck off.”

Oh wow, they both were going to get to do a monologue, how peachy-keen. _Charming_ , their English teacher would have said.

Fuck it. Billy leaned around him and slashed his finger through the condensation, still hovering close enough that Steve’s shoulder bumped his chest when he jumped back. Which of course, made him jump again.

“Jesus, Billy!”

Billy thumped his fist against his seat, jerked open the door on his side and slammed it shut behind him. Flurries melted on his cheeks and brow, helped him breathe in the silence outside the car. He could make a run for it. He could move and move and move, and go as far as he could, and then—then what?

“Yeah? Stay lost!” Steve shouted over the hood of the car, body bent a little with the force of it.

“Why do we keep doing this?” Billy roared back. “What the fuck is your problem?”

Steve’s mouth snapped shut, but his eyes went wide. He searched the forest beyond Billy, fingers squeezing too-tight around his keys. “Fuck off,” he said, weak.

When he went inside, he turned on the porch light, but he didn’t close the door.

Everything was fucking stupid, so fucking, infuriatingly irresponsible, hot and cold, itching aches and pains. If Billy didn’t know what he wanted, Steve was worse, ghosting around his own house leaving lights on, letting Billy turn them off. It wasn’t a taunt, or a tease, or some kind of test? But Steve huffed like every step he took wasn’t an invitation.

What was the point, really? Who the fuck did Steve think he was fooling, walking around with his shoulders a little too scrunched, mouth slightly downturned, sighs too long?

Billy had always thought Steve was pretty, in a mocking, passing way. He saw why girls would get in their knees for King Steve, why they would giggle and push around each other for a date with him. But Billy hadn’t thought of more, always knew how to wear his blinders right, ask Melanie Teagan to prom, fuck her in the back of his car around her ridiculous dress.

He didn’t think Steve was the type to play hard to get. Not that he really knew Steve well, even as he followed him around his house, listened to him talk on the phone with his mom over a cold dinner, watched him brush his teeth.

For every yes Steve said, he gave a no. He blinked at the message Billy had left on the fridge and rubbed his face, but didn’t address it, just microwaved his food and called his mother, asked how the weather was where she was, told her about the frost.

Yes, it was too early. Yes, he knew where his winter jacket was. No, he was an adult, she didn’t need to worry.

Not that it seemed like his parents worried too much, if Billy hadn’t met them.

When Steve finally got into bed, he stared at the ceiling a long time, giving another one of those sighs. “You’re still here,” he said.

Which, Billy was getting real fucking tired of endless questions. He flicked the light switch on and off.

Steve put his hands over his eyes. “I meant it. I don’t. This isn’t good, man. I didn’t, like, consent to this.”

But he left doors open for Billy, left lights on to know where he was, spoke in empty rooms in a way that wasn’t for his own benefit.

Looking through the cracks in his fingers, Steve said. “I want to talk.”

He waited a long, long time, before rolling on his side. “ _Fine_.”

Everything made Billy want to shake him, made him want to scream. He grit his teeth and balled his fists until Steve was snoring softly. Then he took off his jacket it and hung it around the back of the chair again, habit more than necessity. He peeled back the covers, settled his head on the pillows, and wrapped an arm around Steve’s waist.

When he opened his eyes, the room was dark and hot, too dark, surreal in a way that felt wrong, out of place. Steve’s bare back stuck to his bare chest, their skin sweat-slicked and clammy. “There’s no sun,” he said, aware that it was stupid.

Steve shifted in his arms, said, “It’s night.”

“I guess.”

“Are you here?”

Billy licked his lips, wondered what that meant. Tightened his arm. “Yeah, I’m here.”

“Why?”

“You wanted to talk.”

“This isn’t _talking_.”

“All I do is fucking talk. Talk and talk and talk, at you. But you’re never fucking _listening_.”

“I’m always _waiting_.”

“For what?”

“You,” Steve said small, shuddered. “But you won’t tell me what you want. Why you’re here.”

The phone on Steve’s desk rang, shrill and jagged, but just once, cut the room like a bad joke delivered by an unwanted relative.

Billy’s hair was damp, stuck to his sweaty neck. Had his skin itching, vibrating. “If I knew, I’d tell you.”

“And you’re really you?”

“Think I am.”

“What’s your favourite colour?”

“How the fuck would you know if that was a lie?”

Steve’s shoulders shook a second, before he shrugged Billy off and rolled to face him, his hand between them on the bed. “I don’t know, they do it in movies.”

Billy scrunched his nose. “You don’t even remember the movies you watch.”

“I remember you.” Steve moved his hand, brushed his pinkie over one of Billy’s nipples. “I remember basketball, and math class, and the Byers’, and the black under your skin.”

“All my redeeming qualities.”

“You could never take your eyes off me.”

“That’s an exaggeration.”

“Do you think this is my fault?”

Billy didn’t need to think it over, had the answer on his tongue too-fast, hazy. “Don’t think it’s anyone’s fault.”

Steve closed his eyes and sighed. “I can’t do this.”

“You wanted to talk.”

“You’re dead.”

“And you’re dreaming about me being naked with you. Think I’ve got the stronger argument.”

“This isn’t even an argument.”

“You don’t care that we’re naked.”

Slowly, Steve opened his eyes, face unreadable in the dark. “I’ve always thought you’d understand. Hoped you’d seen the monsters we were fighting, the night you beat me. Hoped you’d noticed their bodies flopped on the ground when you woke up. Maybe then someone would have understood. Would have gotten me. Because you wanted me. I could tell you wanted me.”

“Shit, you’re more delusional than I thought.”

“Was I wrong?”

A clock ticked somewhere in the house, _tick-tick-tok_ , drunken, too-lucid. “No.”

“You want me.”

“What do you want out of this?”

“How does this even work? How would we even work?”

And Billy’s not sure what we Steve means, but he rolls enough to kiss Steve’s mouth, pulls lightly on his bottom lip. “Can you feel me?”

“Yes.”

“Then like that.”

“Like this?”

“Yes.”

The phone rang. Steve took a sharp breath. “I think that one’s for you.”

But moving seemed impossible with cement legs, limbs pasted to Steve’s, foreheads bumping. “Just let it ring,” he said.

“Billy,” Steve said, pushed on his chest. “Billy, you need to get the phone.”

It took all his strength, but he got out of bed, looked out the window, lifted the phone to his ear as the sun peeked out from over the trees. “Hello?” he asked.

When he opened his eyes, Steve was snoring a little loud, kind of gross. But he held Billy’s hand tight to his chest, fingers laced, and Billy didn’t know if it _meant_ something, but it kind of _felt_ like it did, and that was the crux of it, wasn’t it?

He kissed Steve, heard and felt his breath catch. As he ran a thumb over Steve’s cheek, Steve opened his eyes. “Billy?” he asked.

Billy kissed him again, short, chaste. Steve didn’t kiss back, but he groped for Billy’s shoulder, had his mouth open a little when he said, “Shit. I think I need to—my alarm is probably going to go off soon.”

Billy nodded against his cheek. “Back to the grind?”

“Okay, I’m getting up?” Steve said, but it wasn’t an answer to Billy’s question. He wiggled away from Billy and out of bed, went to the bathroom to shower.

When Billy still wrote, _MORNING PRINCESS,_ on the fridge, Steve just rubbed his face.

Sometimes, Billy could tell Steve had been talking to himself. Not that Steve intended to be talking to himself, but. Sometimes Billy would open his eyes nauseous, head spinning, in a new place, and the clocks would have ticked hours, the sun setting while he blinked, and Steve would be on about something, asking questions Billy couldn’t answer.

Sometimes, he got the sense that Steve had asked him for something, and he couldn’t deliver.

Sometimes, his vision got so cloudy that he had to blink, and then he was nowhere, in and out, a flicker.

“That’s not funny,” Steve would say, and Billy wouldn’t know what the joke was meant to be. But Steve kissed him at night, and complained about him during the day, and blamed every bump and bang on him, and it made something settle in him.

“You’re fucking hot and cold,” Steve would say sometimes, and Billy could explain until he was blue in the face, would write _NOT MY FAULT_ in shiny metallic letters, or in sloppy handwriting on post it notes, but it wasn’t the same, wasn’t enough.

And at night, in their dreams, they’d hold hands, but the phone would ring and ring and ring. And Billy always had to pick it up.

Halloween rolled around quick, a sort of a gut-lurching blessing as Billy followed Steve around the house, flickered lights to attract Steve’s attention, held him from behind as he made his morning toast. He’d helped Steve put up pumpkins and hanged string lights, had lined the fireplace with spooky plastic candles and cobwebs.

“Is your ghost going to be there?” Robin had asked again, the night before.

And Steve had said, “I don’t know,” like he’d say, “Billy, you never fucking tell me anything.”

And it was sharp, confusing.

“Did you invite your children?”

“What? Why would I do that?”

“They go to Hawkins High, dingus. I see Hargrove’s sister making out in front of my locker like, literally every day.”

That had boiled Billy’s blood, but it wasn’t like he could go over there and yank on Max’s pigtails, remind her that _dad will kill me if he finds out you’re fucking that boy._ Because, well.

“No, I didn’t invite them, Jesus. You think they’d want to get trashed with a bunch of juniors and seniors? I think they’re still going trick or treating this year. Something about never being too old for candy.”

“Really? Like, listen. I’m in band. But those kids are fucking dweebs.”

“But you’re still coming?”

“Only for you, little-Stevie.”

So, Billy had watched Steve fuss around the house all afternoon, helped him set things up, wondered what it would be like to stand beside Steve and do his hair in the mirror.

“You think I’ll be a hot vampire?” Steve asked. “Got a cape and shit and everything.”

“I think you’d be a fucking sexy vampire,” Billy promised. He stepped behind Steve and ran his hands over Steve’s chest, squeezed his shoulders from behind.

Steve made a face, leaning away to put on some shitty eyeliner. “Not that I’m trying to impress you, or anything.”

Billy touched the back of his neck. Steve didn’t flinch.

“You know what,” Steve said. “Never mind.”

Which was just. Really phenomenal timing, and all that.

Candy and booze poured into the house with each guest, laughter and music filling every room. The string lights and fake candles were the only lights left on, people drinking and dancing in the dark.

From his place on the wall, Billy could name nearly every face, had dirt on almost all of them. The thrum of being king still sat in his veins, but it was hard to be high and mighty when he was stone sober, the beer in his hand tasting of nothing but cold. He wondered if anyone could see a floating cup. It was pointless.

Steve was playing the good host, bopping around with a drink in his hand, laughing with Robin. They’d have been cute together, as a couple. Definitely a step up from prissy Nancy Wheeler. Billy took a sip of beer, scrunched his nose.

Pointless.

There wasn’t much he could do but wait, set his cup down and wander. He watched someone spike the punch, even though it was already spiked, even though someone was already puking up red in the first floor powder room. It was too early to be so sloppy, but who was Billy to judge, walking from room to room in the clothes he wore every day, hair permanently perfect.

“I could have sworn I saw Billy,” he heard someone say, and turned to see Cathy Mayers holding her boyfriend’s shoulders, eyes wide. “There, in the mirror, it was definitely him, his tattoo and everything.”

“Fuck, babe,” Jason Chapman said, rubbing her waist. “How fucking high are you?”

“I’m _serious_.”

“Oooh,” Jason said, wiggled his hips, voice warbling. “Maybe it’s a ghost.”

“Fuck you.” She pushed him a bit. “That’s not funny.”

“What ghost?” Someone else asked. Billy didn’t know him, he was probably some freshman, lucky enough to sneak in with an older sibling. Looked kind of big for a brat, though.

“I saw Billy Hargrove!” Cathy shouted.

Across the room, Steve rubbed his face.

“That’s disgusting!” Bethany shouted, and _fucking hell_ , who invited her? “And disrespectful!”

“I saw it!”

“Okay!” Steve shouted, clapped his hands. “Who vants to stand the keg?” He flashed his fake teeth, fluttered his cape. Jesus Christ.

Keg King Steve reigned, booze making the fake blood on his chin drip down to his white dress shirt, staining it like cheap red wine on a tablecloth. He roared and slapped backs as he tripped from the backyard into his living room, and wasn’t it sweet, taking his title back from a dead boy. If anyone thought it was morbid, they didn’t say it, earlier tittering replaced with drinking games a dancing.

A group in the den—not the living room, the Harrington’s had _both_ —had started a game of seven minutes in heaven, and Billy couldn’t see Jacob Greensborough getting a rough handjob from Stacey Cooney in the hall closet, but he could hear it, so.

Being dead was the fucking worst. Where were his fucking closet handjobs? In _his_ house?

No one would be fucking Greensborough anyway if they weren’t wasted, so his odds would have been way fucking better.

The guy from earlier, the freshman, tugged on Steve’s arm long enough to say something in his ear. Billy was too far away to hear, but he kind of wished he wasn’t, didn’t like the way Steve frowned a second, before biting his lip and bobbing his head. The guy said something else, made Steve grin.

Christ. Billy needed to keep himself in check. Well, what he needed was to figure out how to walk past the hall mirror without a second haunting accusation, but that was kind of fucking hard when he was, you know, _an actual ghost._

Steve grabbed a girl around the waist and laughed in her ear, murmured something that made her laugh too. Some of the blood on his shirt transferred to the back of her angel corset, leaving blotches that looked like they oozed from the inside out. Billy could relate, had done a lot of oozing in the past year, kind of wished he could scrub it from his skull.

He walked up behind them and watched as they swayed, some pop singer Billy couldn’t name crooning something slow and spooky. The girl’s halo wobbled on her head, sparkles glinting under the string lights, and Billy guessed it was the kind of romantic shit they’d do in movies, the kind of romantic shit Steve probably loved.

Some other girls came over, kept her from hogging Steve, but they all stayed close, swaying, chatting as they waited for the song to change, and Billy didn’t understand what his feet were doing until he was already half-way across the floor. He stepped up behind Steve and put his hands on his waist, squeezed when Steve flinched.

After a second, Steve glanced over his shoulder. “What?” he asked, softer than the music, just a purse of lips.

Billy kissed his cheek and slid his arms to lock around his waist. Waited for Steve to turn back to the girls before tucking his chin over Steve’s shoulder.

Steve was clearly smashed, breath eighty percent alcohol and twenty percent pepperoni pizza, but he knew how to act natural, swayed in time like Billy wasn’t plastered to his back, Billy’s eyes closed, thumbs rubbing over Steve’s ridiculously soft shirt. Maybe, face forward, Steve could feel like Billy was more real, just a solid line along his body.

Party chatter and music seemed duller with his nose in Steve’s neck, yellow low-light flickering when he cracked open his eyes.

Steve tilted his head just enough to murmur, “I’m still mad.”

The song changed to something faster, more upbeat. The girls around Steve crowded in a little closer, laughing as they moved, talking to Steve over the _Monster Mash_. It would be right to slink away, but before Billy could move, Steve was grabbing his hands and setting them back on his waist, the space between them throat-choking but warm.

When Billy opened his eyes, he was in Steve’s room, wind gutted out of him and stomach rolling as he grabbed on to the desk for purchase. The sun was rising, gray early-morning light promising heavy clouds and rain.

He didn’t remember fading out. He didn’t remember Steve going anywhere, or doing anything that would have jostled him. One second he was holding Steve’s hips, breathing on his neck, and the next he was trying not to throw up on the bedroom carpet. Not that he could throw up. Or he _assumed_ he couldn’t. Maybe that’s what ectoplasm actually was. Gnarly.

Steve’s cape and shirt were on the floor by the bed, white fabric clearly drenched through red, like the blood from Steve’s lips, or the triple-spiked punch. Through the blinds, Billy could see toilet paper dangling from one of the trees in the front yard.

“Not now, Billy,” Steve murmured.

“What did I—” Billy started, nearly bit his tongue clean off.

The guy—The freshman?—had an arm curled around Steve, lips pressed to his neck. “Jesus, you were fucking that Hargrove guy?” he asked.

Steve whipped an elbow back, pushing the guy off in one sharp shrug. “What are you _doing_?” he asked.

The guy opened and closed his mouth a few times. “You said it was fine if I crashed in here, I figured…?”

“Yeah, I meant like, on the floor or something, man, shit. I haven’t seen you since the ninth grade. You can’t just—do that.”

It rankled Billy, just a little bit, that he didn’t know the fucker’s name, but not _nearly_ enough for him to care. He’d never need it, anyway.

“I was right, though? You are into guys? Shit. I was just going on a hunch, you used to always look at me—”

“When we were fifteen,” Steve said, nearly ground through his teeth. “When you were like five feet tall and had braces, not. Jesus Christ, I don’t even know you.”

“But you are, then?” the guy asked. “Gay?”

The word seemed to suck the air from the room, had Steve looking strangled and Billy’s chest on fire.

“I just mean—” the guy said. “Look, I went about this the wrong way. We were having fun last night, right? We could take it back there, I could just, like, ask you on a date—”

“No fucking way, Josh.”

“Steve—”

It was too much, too many pieces clicking together as Billy finally got his breath, the thunder rolling in his ears blocking everything else out. It hadn’t been intentional, or _easy_ , but that was his bed, his warmth.

He bowled everything off the dresser, stomped towards the bed with enough force that the pictures on the wall rattled. Steve took a sharp breath as _Josh_ jumped. “Is this an earthquake?”

“We’re in _Indiana_.”

“Get out!” Billy shouted, watched their eyes both go wide. “Now!”

Josh scrambled with the sheets, but he wasn’t fast enough, didn’t move in time for Billy to yank them off and grab him by the heels. The guy screamed, blood-curdling and weepy as he fell to the floor, head clunking against the short wooden footboard.

“Billy—” Steve said.

Everything seemed to spin, woozy like he got with someone pressed under his fists, like he’d been when he smashed a plate over Steve’s head, slap-happy. Slapped-happy. He grabbed Josh and forced him out of the room without a shirt, pushed him down the stairs. Nothing broke, unfortunately, not even a tooth. The bastard caught the banister too early for real damage.

It didn’t matter. Billy followed him downstairs, yanked the front door open, shoved him out, slammed it closed behind him.

When he turned, ten hungover teenagers were standing wide-eyed in the mouth of the living room, Cathy Mayers at the front with a finger waving. She said, “I saw him in the mirror! I _know_ I saw him!”

“You can’t just do that!” Steve shouted, slamming the kitchen cupboard closed. “Jesus fucking Christ, Billy.”

Again, with the shouting, like Billy could fucking do anything. He stood by the kitchen door with his arms crossed, watched Steve stomp around while he made his lunch. Billy flipped the light switch on and off, just as something, anything he could do that wouldn’t be another violent fucking mistake.

“Don’t you get like that with me!” Steve said.

Teeth grit, Billy flipped the switch twice.

“Oh, fuck you too!” Steve said. “So many people saw that! That’s not—That’s not _okay_. You can’t freak out because someone came on to me.”

Which was unfair, and also completely untrue. Billy flipped the switch twice again. He could do whatever the fuck he wanted.

“If you would just talk to me—”

“I’m trying!” Billy shouted, flipped the switch another two times, knew at least one of those things would get across.

“This is not talking!” Steve said, but he wasn’t looking at Billy, he was looking at the light.

“That was—I get it, okay? That we’re like, _maybe_ something.”

Billy flipped the switch twice, tried to remember to breathe in the dark between beats.

“Okay, so. So alright, we’re something. But half the time you don’t talk to me. I don’t even know when you’re here.”

Like Steve was trying to open up communication, was willing to do more than hope Billy would just appear, fully be, flesh and blood and golden hair, black goop between his lips, broken, alive.

Billy flipped the switch three times, wondered if it might come off the wall.

“How do I know you’re not going to leave?”

“I’m not,” Billy ground out, flipped the switch once.

“Can you stop that? Jesus Christ.”

“No.” Two switch flips.

“Is this a game to you?” Steve asked, rubbed his face.

“No,” Billy said again, another two flips.

Rain hit the windows, Friday extra gloomy with half the teenagers in Hawkins playing hooky, splashing around under the clouds. Billy felt like a bird rattling around in a cage, ruffling his feathers, smashing his head against the bars.

Steve covered his mouth like he was praying for patience and looked at the roof. “One light yes, two lights no?”

It made sense. It was annoying. But it made sense. Billy flipped the switch once.

“Were you trying to protect me?”

It was a sweet sentiment, but Billy flipped the switch twice. He’d seen Steve fight monsters.

“Then what the fuck, Billy? Why, then?”

“That’s not a yes or no question, dumbass,” Billy said. Flipped the lights twice.

“Billy—” Steve said. And what he had come up with was useful, would be great later, or tomorrow, or whenever Billy was feeling less rankled, a little less like the only way to make Steve listen was grab him by the shoulders, shove him into the counter.

Steve flinched, grabbed Billy’s arms, said his name again. “What are you—” he asked.

Billy kissed him like it was an answer, like Steve was sacred. He held him too-tight between his palms, felt Steve’s hands slide up his back and over his neck, into his hair. When he opened his eyes, Steve’s were closed.

“I’m sorry,” Billy said, soft.

Steve’s laugh was short, surprised. “Now he speaks,” he said, but his lashes didn’t flutter. He pressed their foreheads together, noses rubbing in whispers, feeding Billy his air.

Billy tightened his arms, startled. “You can hear me?” No reply. He pressed another kiss to Steve’s lips, smoothed a hand down his back. Felt like a wound stitching itself together, scab upon scab, fresh knit skin peeking out, pinkish and white.

“Are you going to stay with me?” Steve asked.

It wasn’t something Billy could answer, but it didn’t stop him from squeezing Steve’s waist once.

That night was cool and scratchy, late fall winds knocking tree branches into the windows, threatening to knock out the power. The rain hadn’t ceased, had just kept kicking up a fuss outside like the world was going to drown. Maybe someone somewhere was building an arc, hadn’t been informed about the afterlife.

Steve took a long time getting ready for bed. Billy flipped the lights sometimes, just to show he was there, but the weather was also doing it for him. Around the time Steve was brushing his teeth, Billy had resorted to moving things around, pushing the soap bar back and forth or turning the taps on and off.

“Do you have to do that?” Steve kept asking, but he smiled like maybe it was okay, and when he climbed into bed, Billy went with him.

“You keep turning off the lights,” Steve said, and Billy knew he was dreaming, but there was a sort of grounding quality to it he couldn’t place, something about sitting on Steve’s living room sofa in the low-light, Halloween decorations washing the dark orange.

“Yeah, gotta let you know I’m there,” Billy said. They sat on either end, turned towards one another, socked feet touching. In just boxers and socks, sweat was still collecting on Billy’s collarbones, like the candles were heating the room like an oven left on too long.

Steve took a drag from his cigarette, exhaled slow before passing it over. “I thought you were always here.”

It was good to hold smoke in his lungs, remember the burn, the rush of chemicals, sweet ash on his tongue. Billy blew smoke up to the roof. “I am and then I’m not.”

“You said you’d stay with me.”

“I _am_.”

Steve took the cigarette, shook his head. “You just said you’re not.”

“That’s not—look. _Look_. I’m tryn’a tell you when I’m around. I can’t always get it fucking right, but—” he took the cigarette back, “I don’t not answer you, alright? I answer you. But I’m not good at this shit.”

“Feelings?” Steve offered.

If Billy could cry, he might. Instead, he choked on his next drag, laughed as he coughed to clear his lungs. “Being fucking dead. Being what you need.”

“Why the fuck are you talking in riddles?”

“Because we’re _asleep_. Or you’re asleep. I don’t fucking know what I am.”

The jack-o-lantern in the fireplace bared its pointy orange teeth, square eyes ominous, candle flickering.

Steve wrapped his arms around himself, stared at his knees. “How do we do this?” he asked. Lighting cracked outside, followed by dense thunder, rumbling like an old-fashioned train on rusty tracks.

“You keep asking that.”

“I don’t know.”

“I’m gonna stay. I don’t know until when. But until I can. I’ll let you know when I’m around.”

“You don’t talk to me.”

Billy knocked the ash from his cigarette off in the tray, wished he had a beer, wondered why they didn’t have a fan with it so hot. “I can’t control it. They don’t give us a fucking book.”

“Us?”

“The dead.”

“Christ.” Steve scrunched his nose. “Don’t put it that way.”

The rain rattles the windows. The TV buzzes to life, just static, but neither of them look. “You okay, if I follow you for life? It’s not going to be normal.”

“Nothing in my life is normal.”

Monsters flash on the TV, tunnels with creatures with dripping jowls, dense fire. It’s no station Billy has ever seen, but he knows what it is, just isn’t sure how to place it. “You really want to do this?”

“You’re part of my home.”

And Billy didn’t know what to do with that either, just bumped his foot into Steve’s, solid, sweaty.

The phone rang. “I think that’s for you,” Billy said. It was hard to hear over the static and the rain, but Billy thought he could hear it fall off the receiver, a voice murmuring on the other end.

After a moment, Steve sighed and got up, went into the kitchen where the phone was lightly swinging, tapping into the wall. “Hello?” he asked.

Lightning flashed as Billy closed his eyes, pillowed his head as he listened to the rain.

When he opened them, Steve was starting to sit up in bed, blinking at a woman in the doorway. Steve’s mother had her hair in perfect ringlets, lips painted ruby red like they were in all her photos. She seemed shockingly young compared to Susan. “Well, I’ve got breakfast on,” she said. “I was surprised we didn’t wake you when we came in. Come down when you’re ready.”

And it occurred to Billy that Steve was young, as young as Billy felt, even with his worn bones and churning stomach, the suspicion that sometimes the bile he couldn’t taste was the ache of chemicals burning down his throat.

As Steve’s mother left, Steve fumbled for Billy’s hand, gave his thigh a squeeze when he found that instead. “You better not pull any shit with them home,” he said. “Shit, I forgot they were coming.”

“I’m surprised you even have parents,” Billy muttered, but he squeezed Steve’s hand once, wondered if Max was sitting with their parents at the kitchen table, munching pancakes while their father read the morning paper, Susan fretting over the crossword she stole while his father was filling his coffee cup. If they’d set an extra place in his old chair in his memory, or if they’d already forgotten him in three months. If he was nothing more to them than a box to donate to Salvation Army.

Steve was going to live a long time, would move out on his own, would get an apartment, or a house, or a dog that would bark when things moved around the house, or a cat that would stare at Billy until the hairs on the back of his neck stood up, made him feel found out. Steve might find love in someone else, someone human. Someone who wasn’t just a fragment.

“Steve!” his mom called. “Before the coffee gets cold, please.”

With a sigh, Steve ran his hand up until he found Billy’s jaw, kept his eyes closed as he felt for Billy’s mouth with his thumb and gave him a kiss. “Behave,” he reminded.

Billy squeezed his hand once.

The fridge magnets still moved to say _MORNING PRINCESS_. Steve was fuming.

**(the life may leave my lungs but) my heart will stay with you**

**_epilogue_ **

“I don’t understand how you’ve lived this long, dingus. How have you never seen _Carrie_?”

“No one _has_ to see Carrie,” Steve said.

“You also didn’t know bread could make you fat.”

“That’s not, like, _important_ , okay? Like, no one actually needs that to survive. Or horror movies. Or any movies. This shit isn’t going to like, help me pay my taxes.”

Billy wobbled in from the kitchen, head fuzzy. Last thing he remembered, they had been at the video store, Steve fighting with Keith about how he fucked up his hours again, giving him a clopener when Bethany’s hours were clearly open.

He wasn’t really thinking when he rubbed his face and batted at the light switch three times, so used to signalling to Steve after a month that he sometimes fucked up.

Steve’s mom thought there was something wrong with their electrical box. Apparently, a repair man was coming on Monday. She wouldn’t be pleased with his prognosis.

“Billy,” Steve groaned, absent minded. Billy watched him glance at Robin, go as wide-eyed as she was.

“Billy?” She asked. “Like Billy Hargrove? _Billy Hargrove_ is your ghost?”

Shit.

“Fuck,” Steve muttered, rubbed his face. “Look, like, I meant to tell you—”

“And you’re okay with that? He’s dangerous! Steve!”

“Look, it’s—it’s more complicated than that, alright? He’s nice and shit. He like, helps out at work. Keith should really being paying him.”

“ _Steve_.”

Billy came around the side of the couch and sat down next to him, put an arm around his shoulders like they usually did on the couch, some movie flickering on the TV that Steve was only half-watching. Sometimes Steve could feel him. Sometimes he might as well be holding a stuffed animal.

This was one of the times where Steve leaned in, rubbing a hand over his face as Robin gawked more.

“He’s _there_? You—what— _what_.” She laughed, in disbelief, or something else.

“You wanted this place to be haunted.”

“Oh my god, Steve.”

“What?”

“I can’t fucking believe I’ve got to write _Billy Hargrove_ on my board a third fucking time.”

Mornings where Steve lay in bed a long time were sweet, warm as winter brought snow and dangerous roads, ice that froze the windows shut and chilled Steve to the bone. He was always cold under Billy’s fingers, like Billy was still burning up on the inside, or maybe that was just how he felt when Steve crawled on top of him, eyes always closed. Like Billy was a secret, like the lights were always off so he could trace Billy with his tongue.

Billy got it, didn’t mind, liked watching Steve’s open mouth when Billy ran fingers down his spine, palmed his ass.

Steve didn’t like to look. In dreams, he drank in Billy’s body like he wanted to memorize it, keep it in his head in the morning. But in the day, he never did. Billy got it, felt kind of surreal himself as he took off his own clothes before getting in bed, knew Steve couldn’t even see where he put them. If he faded out, he came to with them back on, just a figment of his soul.

The mornings Steve could feel Billy, he’d roll and put a leg over him to let him know, might murmur and kiss his neck. The first time they’d fucked, it was fumbling and clunky, not something either of them had ever done with another man, let alone with one of unable to see with more than touch, unable to be soothed by Billy’s rumbles as he fucked Steve with his fingers, caught his gasps in his mouth.

It was getting easier.

Billy thrust inside him, always wondered if Steve could feel him come, loved the way Steve moaned. “Billy,” Steve would pant, “Billy.”

“Steve,” Billy would say, and sometimes Steve’s eyes would flicker open, just a second, would flush when his next moan was louder.

Every inch of Billy’s skin had been searched, remembered. He moved inside Steve and couldn’t imagine a different fate, didn’t know how he’d gotten so close to life, so lucky. Even if he could disappear tomorrow.

Even though the first time he had whispered, “I love you,” into Steve’s ear, Steve’s eyes had shot open, had him shaking apart the next moment. He hadn’t said it back, but he’d kissed Billy silly, let Billy inside him again later that day, then again at night when he could stare into Billy’s eyes, drink and drink and drink.

Life would be long and surreal. People would ask why Steve never married, might worry about him home alone, unable to fight his demons, rattling around an empty house with more cupboards to fill than he had possessions. Might wonder why he had whiteboards covered with cryptic messages in every room.

Steve didn’t seem to mind. He squeezed Billy between his thighs, murmured his name. Kept leaving all the lights on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this literally took me three weeks more than I planned? But it's longer! So!  
> And it's finished? Which is just? Bananas? And I'm so excited to share it, so I hope you like it!  
> (No pressure if you don't though, like, I get it???)  
> I'm thrilled with everyone who has stuck with me so far, and I love all of you. Your support means so much.  
> Extra super big thanks to uncaringerinn, delphineygt and oephelia who looked this over and helped me take a lot of deep breaths.  
> As always, another thousand thank yous to everyone, and comments are vastly appreciated! I love to hear your thoughts.  
> Also, feel free to hit me up @eternalgoldfish on Tumblr.  
> All the best, and I hope you have a wonderful week.


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